Part 9 (1/2)

Sam derrick ventured forth from his charts and graphs and budgets to pat me on the shoulder in pa.s.sing. I poked book cards in the stamper vigorously, took overdue money with a smile instead of expressionless disapproval, shelved with precision. The morning didn't just hurry by, it hopped, skipped, and jumped by.The telephone rang twice while I was eating my micro-waved egg rolls and browsing through an encyclopedia of twentieth-century murderers. I'd had that familiar irritating feeling that someone, sometime, had said something interesting that I wanted to pursue, mentioned some names I wanted to mull over, and I'd thought flipping through the book would help. But the phone destroyed even this wisp of idea.

The first caller was my father, who always opened with, ”How's my doll?” He hated calling me ”Roe” and I hated him calling me ”Doll.” We hadn't come up with anything neutral. ”I'm okay, Dad,” I said.”Is it still okay with you if Phillip comes?” he asked anxiously. ”You know, if you are upset about the situation in Lawrenceton, we can stay home.” In the background I could hear Phillip piping anxiously, ”Can I go, Daddy? Can I go?”

”The crisis seems to be over,” I said happily.

”They arrest someone?”

”They got a confession. I'm sure everything's going to be okay now,” I said.Maybe I wasn't all that sure. But I was pretty sure that I was going to be okay now. And I wanted to see my little brother.

”Well, I'll be bringing him about five o'clock, then,” Dad said. ”Betty Jo sends her love. We really appreciate this.”

I wasn't so sure about Betty Jo's love, but I was sure she did appreciate having a free, reliable babysitter for a whole weekend.The next call was from my mother, of course. She still had some sort of psychic link to Dad, and if he called me she nearly always rang within the hour. If she was like Lauren Bacall, he was like Humphrey Bogart; an ugly guy with charisma coming out his ears. And bless his heart, he seemed quite unaware of it. But that charisma was still sending out alpha waves or something to my mother.I knew that she must already have heard of Benjamin's confession, and sure enough, she had. She'd also heard he'd said Morrison Pettigrue had mailed her the chocolates. She was skeptical.

”How would Morrison Pettigrue hear about Mrs. See's?” she asked. ”How would he know I always eat the creams?”

”He didn't have to know you always eat the creams,” I pointed out. ”There's just no way to get rat poison in the nut-filled ones.” ”That's true,” she admitted. ”I still have a hard time believing that one. I barely knew the man. I'd met him at some Chamber of Commerce meeting once and if I remember correctly, we talked about the need for new sidewalks downtown. It was a cordial conversation and he certainly gave no sign then that he thought I was some kind of leech living off the ma.s.ses, or whatever.” But if Benjamin was lying about the chocolates, he could also be lying about other things. And I wanted him to be telling the truth and nothing but the truth.

”Let's just shelve this until we find out more about it,” I suggested. ”Maybe he'll say something that'll make sense out of the whole thing.” ”Is-your brother-still staying with you this weekend?” Mother asked, in one of her lightning turns of thought.

I sighed silently. ”Yes, Mother. Dad's bringing Phillip by around five, and he'll be here until Sunday evening.” It would have been beneath Mother's dignity to avoid the sight of Phillip, but having made a point of talking to him once or twice, she usually stayed away while he was at my place.”Well, I'll be talking to you again,” she was saying now. I could bet on that. I asked her about her business, and she chatted about that for a few minutes.”Are you and John still thinking about getting married?” I asked.”Well, we're discussing it.” There was a smile in her voice. ”I promise you'll be the first to know when we definitely decide.” ”As long as I'm the first,” I said. ”I really am happy for you.” ”I hear you have a new beau,” Mother said, which was a logical progression when you think about it.

”Which one have you heard about?” I asked, because I simply couldn't resist.In someone less grand than my mother, I would've called the sound she made a delighted cackle. We hung up with mutual warmth, and I returned to work with the distinct feeling life was on the up and up for me.

My mother's ”beau,” John Queensland, came into the library that afternoon while I was on the circulation desk. I realized he was practically the opposite of my father: handsome in an elder-statesman way, and overtly as dignified and reserved as Mother. He had been a widower for some time and still lived in the big two-story house he'd shared with his wife and their two children, both of whom had children of their own now. My contemporaries, I reminded myself gloomily.

As John was checking out two staid biographies of worthy people, he mentioned that his garage had been broken into some time within the last three weeks.”I never use it anymore, I just park behind the house. The garage is so full of the boys' old stuff-I can't seem to get them to decide what to do with all their junk.” He sounded fond rather than complaining. ”But anyway, I went to track down my golf clubs since I intended scheduling a game with Bankston in this warmer weather, and the darned thing had been broken into and my golf clubs were gone.”

Since John was a Real Murderer, I was sure that this theft meant something. I told John about Gifford Doakes and his hatchet- amazingly, he hadn't heard-and left him to draw his own conclusions.

”I know Benjamin Greer has confessed,” I told John, ”but that's a bit of evidence the police might need. Just a confession isn't enough, I gather.” ”I think I'll go by the police station on my way back to the office,” John said thoughtfully. ”Those clubs had better be reported. The whole bag was taken, and it was a pretty distinctive set. Every time my kids went somewhere, they got a b.u.mper sticker and put it on my golf bag, just a family joke .. .”And trailing off with unheard-of abstraction, John left the library. I thought of Arthur and sighed. I wondered if he'd appreciate being handed another out-of-the-blue fact.Golf clubs. Maybe they'd already been used. Maybe they'd been used on Mamie. The weapon in that case had never been found, that I knew of. Maybe Benjamin would tell the police where the clubs were.

I let this nag at me until I got home and saw my father's car waiting at my apartment. As I greeted my father and hugged my half-brother, I made a resolution not to think about these killings for a couple of days. I wanted to enjoy Phillip's company.

Phillip is in the first grade and he can be very funny and very exasperating. He will eat about five things with any enthusiasm- five nutritious things, that is.(Anything with no nutritional value whatsoever is always acceptable to Phillip.) Luckily for me, one of those things is spaghetti sauce and another is pecan pie, not that either is exactly a health food.

”Roe! Are we having spaghetti tonight?” he asked eagerly.”Sure,” I said, and smiled at him. I bent and kissed him before he could say, ”Yuck! No kisses!” He gave me a quick kiss back, then scrambled to get his suitcase and (much more important) a plastic garbage bag full of essential toys.”I'm going to put these in my room,” he told Father, who was beaming at him with unadulterated pride.

”Son, I've got to go now,” Father told him. ”Your mom is anxious to get where we're going. You be good for your big sister, now, and do what she says to do without giving her any trouble.”

Phillip half-listened, mumbled ”Sure, Dad,” and lugged his paraphernalia into my place.

”Well, Doll, this sure is nice of you,” my father said to me when Phillip had vanished.

”I like Phillip,” I said honestly. ”I like having him stay here.” ”Here are the phone numbers where we'll be staying,” Father said and fumbled a sheet of notepaper out of his pocket. ”If anything goes wrong, anything at all, call us straight away.”

”Okay, okay,” I rea.s.sured him. ”Don't worry. Have a good time. I'll see you Sunday night?”

”Yes, we should be here about five or six. If we're going to be any later than that, we'll call you. Don't forget to remind him about his prayers. Oh-if he runs a fever or anything, here's a box of chewable children's aspirin. He gets three. And he needs to have a gla.s.s of water by the bed at night.” ”I'll remember.” We hugged, and he got in his car with a lopsided smile and half-wave that I could see a woman would have a hard time forgetting. I watched Father drive out of the parking lot, and then heard Phillip shouting from the kitchen, ”Roe! You got any cookies?”

I supplied Phillip with two awful sandwich cookies that he'd told me were his favorites. Very pleased, he bounced outside with his garbage bag of toys, having dumped the ”inside” ones in the middle of my den. ”I bet you have to cook, so I'm going to be out here playing,” he said seriously.I could take a hint. I got busy with the spaghetti sauce.The next time I glanced out the window to check, I saw through my open patio gate that Phillip had already commandeered Bankston into playing baseball in the parking lot. Phillip had great scorn for my baseball playing ability, but Bankston had his approval. Bankston had taken off his suit coat and his tie immediately, and seemed not nearly so stuffy as he pitched the baseball to Phillip's waiting bat.

They'd played before when Phillip had visited, and Bankston didn't seem to consider it an imposition.

Then Robin was drawn into the game when he got home, and he was acting as Phillip's catcher when I called from the patio gate that supper was ready.”Yahoo!” Phillip shrieked, and propped his bat against the patio wall. I smiled and shrugged at his abandoned playmates and whispered to Phillip, ”Thank Bankston and Robin for a good game.”

”Thank you,” Phillip said obediently and dashed in to scramble into his chair at my small dining table. I glimpsed the top of Melanie's head in Bankston's open door as he went in, and Robin said, ”See you later, for pecan pie. I like your little brother,” as he strolled through the gate to his patio. I felt warm and flushed with pride at having such a cute brother-and a little warm too at Robin's smile, which had definitely been of the personal variety.For the next twenty minutes I was occupied in seeing that Phillip used his napkin and said his prayer and ate at least a little serving of vegetables. I looked fondly at his perpetually tousled light brown hair and his startlingly blue eyes, so different from mine. Between bites of spaghetti and garlic bread, Phillip was telling me a long involved story about a fight on the school playground, involving a boy whose brother really knew karate and another boy who really had all the G.I. Joe attack vehicles. I listened with half an ear, the other part of my mind being increasingly occupied by the niggling feeling that I was supposed to know something. Or remember something. Or had I seen something?Whatever this ”something” was, I needed to call it to mind.

”My baseball!” shrieked Phillip suddenly.

He had my full attention. The shriek, which had sprung with no warning from his throat while he was telling me what the princ.i.p.al had done to the playground combatants, had scared the whosis out of me.

”But Phillip, it's dark,” I protested, as he catapulted out of his chair and dashed to the back door. I tried to remember if I'd ever seen him walk, and decided that I had, once, when he was about twelve-months-old. ”Here, at least take my flashlight!”

I managed to stuff it in his hand only because he was so partial to flashlights that he slowed down long enough for me to pull it from the kitchen cabinet.”And try to remember where you last saw the ball!” I bellowed after him.I'd finished my meal while Phillip was relating his long story, so I sc.r.a.ped my plate and put it in the dishwasher (Robin was due in a few minutes, and I wanted the place to look neat). The dessert plates were out, everything else was ready, so while I waited for a triumphant Phillip to return with his baseball, I idly looked at my shelves, putting a few books back in place that were out of order.I stared at the t.i.tles of all those books about bad or crazy or crazed people, men and women whose lives had crossed the faint line that demarks those who could but haven't from those who can and have.

Phillip had been gone a long time; I couldn't hear him out in the parking lot.

The phone rang.

”Yes?” I said abruptly into the receiver.

”Roe, it's Sally Allison.”

”What...”

”Have you seen Perry?”

”What? No!”

”Has he been... following you anymore?”

”No ... at least, I haven't noticed if he has.”

”He ...” Sally trailed off.

”Come on, Sally! What's the matter?” I asked roughly. I stared out through the kitchen window, hoping to see the beam of the flashlight bobbing around through the slats in the patio fence. I remembered the night Perry'd been across the street in the dark waiting for Robin to bring me home. I was terrified.”He didn't take his medicine today. He didn't go to work. I don't know where he is. Maybe he took some more pills.”

”Call the police, then. Get them looking for him, Sally! What if he's here? My little brother's out alone in the dark!” I hung up the phone with a hysterical bang. I grabbed up my huge key ring, with some idea of taking my car around the block for a search, and I pulled out the second flashlight I kept ready.It was my fault. The thing in the dark had gotten my little brother, a six-year-old child, and it was my fault. Oh Lord G.o.d, heavenly King, protect the child.

I left the back door wide open, the welcome light spilling into the deep dusk.The patio gate was already open, Phillip never remembered to close it. His bat was propped beside it as he'd left it coming in to supper.”Phillip!” I screamed. Then I thought, Maybe I should be quiet and creep. In a frenzy of indecision, I swung the flashlight to and fro. A few yards away, a car started up and pulled out of its s.p.a.ce. As it went by, I saw it was Melanie in Bankston's car. She smiled and waved. I gaped after her. How could she not have heard me yell?

But I couldn't reason, I just kept walking and sweeping the ground with that beam of light, seeing nothing, nothing.

”Roe, what's wrong? I was just on my way over to your place!” Robin loomed above me in the dark.

”Phillip's gone, someone's got him! He left to get his baseball, he ran out the back door, he didn't come back!”