Pennines on a Dead Woman's Eyes Page 27

  “And are they now?”

  “Yes.” She set down her glass, faced me unflinchingly. “I hate Cordy as much at this very minute as I ever did. She took away everything I cared about and turned my life to dust.”

  Wingfield rose, went to the window wall behind her, and stood silhouetted against the early-evening light. Finally she said, “All right. I’ll go to Seacliff tonight. I’ll face it one last time. Either tonight will set me free or I’ll be caged with my hatred for the rest of my life.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  It was well after six when I reached Nell Loomis’s studio. Shadow and silence had claimed Natoma Street. A sheet of paper fluttered from where it had been tacked to Nell’s blue door.

  “Took package to South SF drop-off for Fedex,” it said. “Back soon. Don’t try door—dog is loose inside.” I hadn’t seen any dog earlier, so I assume this was Loomis’s idea of how to ward off would-be burglars—providing they could read well enough to decipher the note.

  For the next half hour I sat in my car, fretting. I needed to talk with Jack about tonight, but I didn’t want to leave. If Loomis returned and didn’t find me there, she would go home, and I’d never get hold of those prints. And the prints had assumed greater and greater importance in my mind as the hours passed.

  This, I thought, presented the best argument I’d come up with so far for having a car phone. On Monday I would buy one and request reimbursement for All Souls. If they balked at paying for it—as they so far had—I’d foot the bill myself. And make sure to inform them that as far as I was concerned, all their talk about moving forward into the twenty-first century was just so much overblown rhetoric.

  At ten to seven, a car entered the alley and pulled up behind me. Nell Loomis and I got out of our vehicles simultaneously. She gave me a stingy smile and thanked me for waiting. Inside the studio she excused herself and went into the rest room; I used her phone to call Jack.

  “Are the arrangements all set?” I asked.

  “Yes—for nine o’clock. Wald’s having a fit because Keyes Development wants the number of people admitted to the property kept to a minimum. That means only participants and those with preferred passes. No press. Have you come up with anything that I should know about?”

  “Nothing conclusive yet. How’re you going to handle it out there?”

  “Have Judy walk through it from the beginning, starting at the window of her old room. And hope we score points with the jury.”

  “How is she?”

  “Cool and confident.”

  “How are you?”

  “A wreck. I think she’s feeding on me.”

  “Well, hang in here. Judy’s our only living witness. Let’s let her memories speak for themselves.” Loomis emerged from the rest room and went into the darkroom. I told Jack I had to go, then followed her.

  Nell was slipping a strip of negatives into the enlarger’s holder and blowing off surface dust with canned air. She glanced at me and frowned.

  “Can I watch?”

  “I guess. Just don’t get in my way.” She inserted the holder in the enlarger and switched from fluorescents to an orange safelight. The timer whirred, light flashed and disappeared, and the timer clicked off. Loomis moved the sheet of photographic paper from the enlarger to the tray of developing liquid.

  “I want to check the exposure,” she said.

  I moved closer, watching over her shoulder as images appeared and sharpened on the submerged sheet. The banquet table at the Blue Fox, Dulles speaking at the lectern. To his right, Russell Eyestone. To Russell’s right, his wife and then Leonard. And to Leonard’s right, Vincent Benedict—bleary eyed, probably drunk. The men were formally attired in dark jackets, white shirtfronts, and bow ties. Dulles’s shirt, as befitted a conservative, had small, austere pleats and plain studs, as did Russell Eyestone’s; Benedict and Leonard—wild and crazy young guys that they’d been—had opted for something a bit more froufrou.

  Loomis said, “Exposure’s good,” and moved the paper to the stop bath. “You sure you want regular prints and not just contacts?”

  “Contacts won’t give me the details I need.”

  She shrugged. “It’s your money.” Then she returned to the enlarger and began printing in earnest.

  Enlarger to developer, developer to stop bath, stop bath to fixer; Eyestone Senior shaking hands with Dulles at the banquet table; Dulles with Benedict, with Leonard, with people I didn’t recognize; couples chatting in the restaurant lobby; Dulles leaving amid a phalanx of Secret Service men.

  I said to Loomis, “Cut to the shots of the reception, would you?”

  More couples chatting in what looked like the ballroom of the St. Francis. I recognized a younger Joseph Stameroff, the then-mayor of the city, and the other public officials, including a man who would later be a two-term governor. A receiving line: Dulles, Russell Eyestone and spouse, other Institute staff members and their wives, whose faces were now becoming familiar. One of the arrivals passing along the receiving line was familiar, too: Roger Woods, lean and somewhat sinister-looking in his black formal attire. And there was the photo the newspaper had picked up of the Eyestones with Dulles; impeccably clad, smiles correct, but Leonard looking diminished . . .

  I stared at the last two prints until Loomis grasped them with her tongs and fished them out of the developer. Stared some more as they sank into the stop bath. Went to the prints floating in the fixer and fished around until I found one of both Eyestones and Vincent Benedict in the Blue Fox lobby.

  And saw what made these photographs incriminating to someone on the Institute staff.

  Loomis jostled me. “Told you not to get in my way,” she muttered irritably.

  I moved aside. “How long will it take to run these through the dryer?”

  “All of them?”

  “No, just this and this, these two also.”

  “I can do them pretty quick, if that’s all you want.”

  “Thanks.” I went out into the studio. Sank onto the sofa, but immediately sprang to my feet. Wandered aimlessly among the light stands and tripods and around the mountain of canned artichoke hearts. All the while thinking of how to play it at Seacliff.

  After a few minutes I called Aday Josyln at home. Laid out for her what I knew but couldn’t prove. Asked that she and Wallace meet me at the estate.

  I now knew who.

  I thought I knew why.

  But many things were still inexplicable. Might remain that way forever.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Joslyn, Wallace, and I leaned against the unmarked car. The street in front of the Seacliff property was clogged with vehicles; neighbors stood at the windows of nearby buildings; the area was nearly as bright as the day, and at the foot of the driveway a reporter form KPIX-TV spoke into the microphone. The mood among the press was ugly.

  A few minutes before, Judge Valle had addressed the crowd, warning them that only those who held preferred passes to the trial would be allowed onto the grounds. “This is an ex officio court of law,” he said, “and a court of law must not be turned into a media circus.” Beside him, James Wald nodded agreement but drew his lips down discontentedly.

  Joslyn said, “Big night for the Tribunal, and then the judge and the development company go and spoil it.”

  Wallace grinned and slapped Joslyn’s shoulder. “Big night for you, too, partner. You get to make the collar, and no judge or development company is going to spoil that.”

  The comment answered my question about what concession Bart had given Adah in return for taking all of the risk and on the case: she’d also take all of the credit for the collar. I’d get little thanks, if any, but that was all right with me. My visibility in the community was already uncomfortably high.

  Joslyn said, “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Bart. We’ve got nothing to bring charges on, much less take to court.”

  “Like Sharon said, something’ll go down in there tonight”—he motioned at the estate—”that’l
l blow it wide open.”

  I felt nervous, irritable, tired of talking about it. “Let’s go,” I said.

  We pushed through the crowd of glowering reporters and started up the drive, showing our passes to one of the security guards provided by Keyes Development. The fog was in again; it hung thick in the trees, blurring outlines and shadows. I lagged behind the homicide inspectors, fighting off images.

  The house loomed ahead, a halo of light spreading through the mist from its front door. Indistinct figures milled about before it. I stopped, glanced into the blackness where the dovecote had stood. Foghorns groaned up by the Gate—two long, dolorous notes, underscored by the boom and hiss of the sea.

  If I’d ordered the weather, it couldn’t more perfectly have replicated that of the fatal night thirty-six years before.

  Ahead of me I saw Joslyn and Wallace split up, going to find the persons they were to keep under surveillance. I moved toward the group by the door, where Judy and Jack stood with Judge Valle. The judge was speaking, but a chill wind scattered the sound of his voice; he motioned for people to gather closer and began again.

  “Tonight,” he said, “we are re-creating a crime scene. And while this is a somewhat melodramatic demonstration, we do so with utmost seriousness. I remind you that court is still in session and no disturbances will be tolerated. Are you ready, Mr. Stuart?”

  Jack stepped forward and explained that we would enter the house and proceed to the third story room once occupied by ten-year-old Judy Benedict. Ms. Benedict would serve as our guide to the crime scene and tell us what she witnessed on the night of June 22, 1956.

  As Jack spoke, I looked around at the others. The jurors were clumped together, bundled in heavy coats; some of their expressions plainly said that this cold Saturday night outing was more than they had bargained for. Jed Mooney stood on the fringes, his black neo-Beat attire merging with the shadows. Louise Wingfield and Leonard Eyestone watched from the far left, their faces pale and apprehensive. Behind them was Adah Joslyn. On the other side of the judge, Bart Wallace surveyed Joseph Stameroff with narrowed eyes. Rae and Hank stood a yard or so beyond them.

  Suddenly I recalled a dream I’d had in the early hours of the morning as I dozed on my couch. In it Judy had been kneeling near the foundation of the cote as Jack and I watched her. She told us she was afraid, and Jack said, “Just because it happened that way before doesn’t mean it’ll be the same this time.” I said, “The truth can’t be changed.” Judy said “I’m afraid,” and the conversation repeated itself in one continuous loop.

  Wrapped in her dead mother’s black cape, blonde head held high, Judy didn’t look afraid now. When Jack finished speaking and nodded to her, she turned and led us into the house.

  It was colder in there than outside—that dead, down-to-the-joists chill that you feel in long-vacant houses. Lamps in wall sconce showed scuffed hardwood floors and high ceilings with bas-relief coving. An unlit wrought-iron chandelier hung on a long chain in the bow of the curved staircase.

  Judy paused, looking around. Seemed to hug herself under her cape—more, I thought, against memory than against the cold. She said something in a low voice, and Judge Valle asked her to speak up.

  “I said, the lighting is right. These sconces were always left on all night.” She moved toward the stairway, touched the newel post lightly, then began climbing.

  The second-story hallway was wide, railed on the side overlooking the staircase. Judy hesitated again, staring down its length, where dark doorways interrupted the light-colored walls at regular intervals. At the end was a double door that probably led to a master suite. Judy’s eyes rested on it for a moment; then she touched her fingers to her brow and shook her head as if to clear it. Quickly she faced the other way, toward a second staircase.

  Now what was that? I wondered. Some half-realized memory?

  We all followed Judy upstairs. The third-story hallway was narrower, with doors opening on either side. The room Judy led us into was small—probably intended for a servant—and had sloping ceiling. The dormer window showed the mist-draped tops of pine trees. Judy crossed to it and looked out.

  Jack joined her. He said, “It’s June twenty-second, nineteen fifty-six. You’re ten years old and you can’t sleep, so you’re looking out your bedroom window. What do you see?”

  “It’s foggy. I can barely see the lights of the bridge. There’s something outside. Moving under those pines. I’m afraid of it.”

  “Why?”

  “The way it moves. It creeps, as if it doesn’t want anybody to see it.”

  “Is it an animal? A person?”

  “A person.”

  This sounded too slickly rehearsed to me. I glanced at the members of the jury. Several of them looked skeptical, as if they were entertaining the same thought. As if they were remembering that Judy had been an actress.

  Jack asked, “What do you do now?”

  “I go back to bed. But I still can’t sleep. Mama tucked me in hours ago. She was sick. Said she was going to bed, too. But now I can hear somebody at the front door. Going out? Maybe coming in. That can’t be—Mama’s the only one home besides me.”

  Judy’s voice began to change, its pitch climbing until it was the childish singsong I remembered from my dinner party, when she’d told me about finding Cordy’s ring. I watched her carefully, trying to gauge if this was also rehearsed or if she might actually be retreating into memory.

  “What do you do know?” Jack asked again. I couldn’t tell from the way he spoke whether the change in her had surprised him.

  “Pull the covers over my head. I’m scared to be up here all alone, because of the man out there.”

  “The man? Jack’s tone told me that the response had genuinely caught him off guard. A couple of jurors noticed it, too, glanced significantly at each other.

  “The man under the pine trees,” Judy said impatiently.

  “It was a man? You’re sure?”

  She looked at him, eyes flashing with irritation. “It was a man! It moved like a man.”

  “Okay,” he said quickly, “you’re scared and you have the covers over your head. Now what do you do?”

  Judy was silent. The only sound in the small room was the whisper of our collective breath. From outside came the lament of foghorns.

  She said, “I’m going to find Mama.” As she moved toward the door she seemed as focused as a sleepwalker.

  I caught Jack’s eye. He shook his head. If she was acting, she hadn’t told him her intention.

  We all followed her a short distance, down the stairs and along the second-floor hallway to one of the open doors. Judy pantomimed opening it and looking inside, “She’s not there,” she said. “I’m going down to the library. Sometimes she reads there at night.”

  Again we follow her, but at more of a distance now. Even Jack hung back, as if afraid of breaking her concentration. She stopped a few steps from the bottom of the stairs. I glanced at Stameroff and Eyestone, who now stood together. Eyestone’s expression was unreadable, but Stameroff frowned.

  Judy said, “The front door’s open. Mama must have gone . . . oh, no, she wouldn’t go there.”

  “Where, Judy?” Jack asked.

  “I was going to say to the dovecote, but she’d never go there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s where Daddy goes to meet Cordy.”

  A couple of jurors grunted. Judge Valle coughed. Stameroff’s hands tensed into fists. Judy noticed none of the reaction. She crossed the foyer to the front door and stepped out into the strange, still mist. Began walking toward the vacant lot on the bluff above the sea.

  As the group followed, Louise Wingfield fell in beside me. “I never expected such a performance tonight,” she commented. “She has to be acting.”

  “When they started, she was. Now I don’t know. Did you get that information on Chavez for me?”

  “Yes—it’s a funny coincidence. You remember I told you that I rely heavi
ly on my old social contacts to provide positions for our clients? Well, the place where Chavez got hired—and worked up until he failed to show this morning—was Judy’s theater, the Artists’ Showcase.”

  I stopped, staring at her. Her words tumbled in my mind. Tumbled together with other words I’d heard over this two-week period. And fell into a perfect, chilling pattern.

  Up until now I’d known who. I’d thought I knew why. But I’d feared that other factors might remain unexplained forever.

  Now I almost wished they could.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I left Wingfield behind and moved swiftly over the uneven ground. Toward the foundation of the dovecote, where the group now huddled against the cold sea wind. Moved to stop this before it went too far . . .

  Judy was kneeling as she had in my dreams. Touching the circle of bricks, as I had the night before. I began edging through the people around her. Jack saw me, shook his head, motioned me back.

  “I came out here looking for Mama,” Judy said I her little-girl’s voice. “The light was on inside the cote. The door was open.”

  I kept moving. Jack grasped my arm, stayed me.

  “Mama came out of the cote. Her dress was all red in front. I hid in the trees.” She crawled backwards, ducked under the branches.

  I tried to pull away from Jack. He held firm. “No, let her go.”

  “You don’t understand—”

  “I understand more than you think.”

  “She’d left the light on,” Judy said. “The door was open.” She came out from under the branches, stood, moved forward. “I went over and looked inside.” She leaned across the foundation. Recoiled.

  The group was caught up in the drama now. No one moved or even whispered. I felt a chill on my shoulder blades, tried once again to shake free of Jack’s grip. He tightened his fingers, hurting me. His eyes were on Judy, full of something implacable, cruel.

  “It’s Cordy!” Hushed voice now. “She’s lying there like she’s asleep, but there’s all this blood.. .”