Miss Lizzie Page 14

  “And what was her response to that?” Mr. Slocum asked.

  “She just got a tight little nasty look on her face and said, ‘We’ll see,’ real mean and cold, like it was supposed to scare my socks off.”

  “But she never actually asked you for money?”

  “Like I said, she never got a chance. But that’s what she was after, all right.”

  “Did she ever speak with your father?”

  “Not really speak to him, no. But about four days later when I got the mail there was a letter addressed to him, and the writing on the envelope was all straight lines, like someone made them with a ruler? And it was mailed from here in town, and the rest of our mail is always forwarded from our address in Boston. So I opened it.” She inhaled on the cigarette, clearly enjoying the air of melodrama that filled the pause she had created.

  “And?” said Mr. Slocum.

  “The letter was written the same way as the address, like it was done with a ruler? All block letters and everything, and it said that maybe Dr. Hammill would like to know that his daughter spent her evenings carrying on in Fred Childers’s Packard with his son Bobby. I mean, she actually said carrying on. Can you believe? Is that corny or what?”

  “Did you keep the letter?” Mr. Slocum asked her.

  Her plucked eyebrows soared up her forehead. “I only look dumb, okay? And I’m definitely not crazy. I mean, my father’s progressive and all, but why take chances, you know what I mean? I threw it away.”

  “Were there any more letters?”

  “Uh-uh. I guess that she figured she’d already done all the damage she was gonna do.”

  “And the woman who spoke to you, that was Mrs. Burton?”

  “Yeah. See, what I did, after she pulled that little number on me outside Drummond’s, I went back inside and asked Roger—he’s the son, he’s sort of cute but he’s not really my type—if he knew who she was. He said she was Mrs. Burton, the stockbroker’s wife.” If she thought Roger was cute, I wondered what she would make of his friend, Dr. Freud.

  Mr. Slocum nodded. “Did she ever speak to you again?”

  “I only saw her one more time, and that was on the street, just passing by. She didn’t even look at me. I almost said something to her, something nasty, you know? But I figured the best thing to do was let sleeping dogs lie.”

  “Probably the wisest thing, under the circumstances. Let me ask you this, Miss Hammill. Do you have any idea who might’ve killed Mrs. Burton?”

  “Well, I mean it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? She was blackmailing somebody, or trying to, just like she tried to do to me, and he got ticked off and he killed her.”

  Mr. Slocum nodded.

  She plucked a flake of tobacco from her lower lip. “So what’s the story on this reward? I mean, it’s not like I’m greedy or anything, but we can all use a little extra spending money, you know?”

  Mr. Slocum smiled. “If your information proves helpful, we’ll be getting back to you.”

  She frowned. “It wouldn’t have to be in the papers or anything, would it? I mean, you wouldn’t have to use my name, or all that stuff about Bobby Childers?”

  Mr. Slocum shook his head. “I think it’s safe to say that we can guarantee you anonymity.”

  She nodded. “Anonymity. That would be good. And the money would be cash or check?”

  Mr. Slocum looked at Miss Lizzie, smiled, looked back at Miss Hammill. “I imagine we could arrange a cash payment.”

  “Good,” she said. “Great.”

  “Thank you for coming, Miss Hammill.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Mr. Slocum showed Miss Hammill out, returned to his chair, sat down, looked at Boyle, and said, “Blackmail?”

  Boyle shrugged. “From what Clara Bow says, the lady never got to mention money. But it sure sounds like it, doesn’t it?”

  Mr. Slocum frowned again. “Somehow I have a hard time accepting the idea of Mrs. Burton as a blackmailer.”

  Boyle grinned. “You think blackmailers wear striped shirts and little black masks, like those burglars in cartoons?”

  Mr. Slocum smiled. “But a middle-aged woman who’s more than financially secure? Why would she bother?”

  “Blackmail isn’t always about cash. Sometimes it’s about the kick you get from messing around in other people’s lives.”

  “So you think Hammill was telling the truth.”

  Another shrug. “Sounded like straight dope to me.”

  Mr. Slocum turned to me. “Do you know anything about this, Amanda?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t.”

  Miss Lizzie leaned toward me. “Do you think your stepmother could have done anything like that? Like what Miss Hammill described?”

  I remembered Audrey’s pettiness, her preoccupation with both money and scandal. “Yes,” I said.

  Miss Lizzie nodded. To Mr. Slocum she said, “I tend, as Mr. Boyle does, to believe the Hammill woman.” She smiled. “But I confess that she’s a type with which I’m wholly unfamiliar. That dress of hers, and those cosmetics. And she possesses a self-involvement I can only describe as heroic.”

  “A new breed,” smiled Mr. Slocum. “The flapper. F. Scott Fitzgerald invented it.”

  “Then I think he should return to the drawing board, in posthaste. But, as I say, I believe her. Unfortunately, if she’s correct, and Mrs. Burton was blackmailing someone else, it will be a difficult thing to prove. Whoever he was, he’s hardly likely to come forward and admit it.”

  “Even if he didn’t kill her,” said Boyle.

  “But it is,” she told him, “the only possible line of approach we’ve discovered so far. Perhaps you could talk to Mrs. Burton’s friends and acquaintances, and try to determine whether any of them knew about this.”

  “Needle in a haystack,” said Boyle.

  “Perhaps,” she said. She smiled. “But surrendering their needles is, after all, the purpose of haystacks.”

  Grinning, Boyle shrugged once more. “It’s your nickel, Miz Borden.”

  Miss Lizzie turned to Mr. Slocum. “Who else is waiting to talk to us?”

  SIXTEEN

  THE THIRD AND final witness was a man in his forties. His face was square, weathered by the sun, creased with age or effort. A pair of thick black eyebrows bristled below (and not very far below) a thatch of wiry black hair. His eyes were brown, small, set close to a broad flattened nose; and his wide, thin-lipped mouth was downturned at both ends, as though he had once been displeased by something and had resolved to make his displeasure permanent. Atop heavy sloping shoulders was a gray cotton work shirt, somewhat the worse for wear, and over this lay the straps of his dark-blue denim overalls. His shoes were black brogues. Taller than Boyle but not so tall as Mr. Slocum, and wider than either, he was a very large man.

  He moved across the room with the slow stolid comfortable walk of someone who depends on his body for his livelihood and knows that it will never fail him. Mr. Slocum, who had led him from the sitting room, introduced him as Mr. Hornsby. He introduced the rest of us and said, “Have a seat, Mr. Hornsby.”

  Mr. Hornsby eyed the plush red velvet chair for a moment as though it might be an elaborate trap, then lowered himself into it and crossed his arms over his chest.

  Mr. Slocum said, “Now, Mr. Hornsby. You say you have some information about the murder of Mrs. Audrey Burton.”

  Hornsby said, “The nigger did it.”

  For a moment none of us spoke; even I knew that this was not a word used in polite discourse.

  “I see,” said Mr. Slocum at last. “And which Negro, exactly, did you have in mind?”

  “The old one. Old nigger lives out at the edge of town with the rest of ’em. Charlie, they call him.”

  “Old Charlie?” I said. I looked at Miss Lizzie. “He’s the man who brings the chickens. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.” He was an old man, stooped and white-haired, terribly sweet, with a wide ready grin that showed black spaces between nubs of yellow teeth. (A
udrey, whenever pointing out the perils of improper dental hygiene, had always used Charlie as an example.) He had talked with me, joked with me, whenever he came to deliver the chickens Audrey had ordered. From the first I had wanted, but never dared, to ask him to teach me a spiritual or two. Everyone understood that all Negroes knew an infinite number of spirituals.

  “What makes you believe,” Mr. Slocum said, “that this man might be involved in Mrs. Burton’s death?”

  “Saw him,” said Hornsby. “Saw him comin’ out of the place next door to this one. That’s the Burton place, right? He had blood on his shirt. I could see it plain as day. And he was carrying somethin’ in a paper bag. Walked right on past me down Water Street.”

  There was more in his voice than the familiar Yankee twang, some other sort of accent, but I could not identify it.

  “Mr. Hornsby,” said Mr. Slocum, “if we’re talking about the same person here, Charlie Peterson, he’s a man who raises and butchers chickens. It wouldn’t be unusual for him to have blood on his shirt. Or to be carrying something in a paper bag. A chicken, for example.”

  “Saw him coming out of the Burton place. With my own eyes.”

  “Actually saw him coming out of the house?”

  “Coming down the porch. Bold as brass at first, and then he saw me and got all shifty-eyed the way they do. Wouldn’t look me in the face when he passed me. I knew right away he was up to no good.”

  “Does he know you?”

  “Course he does.”

  Mr. Slocum turned to me. “Amanda, do you know if your stepmother ordered a chicken for Tuesday?”

  “I don’t think so. But Charlie could’ve come by to see if we wanted one. He did that sometimes. Really, he wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  Mr. Slocum asked Hornsby, “Have you told the police what you saw?”

  “Not yet. I will, though. You can bet on it. Then I saw in the papers yesterday about the reward. Thought I might as well do myself some good while I do my duty. Someone’s gotta do something. Take a stand.”

  “Against what?” asked Mr. Slocum.

  “The niggers. All they do is cause trouble. Look at Chicago.” Two years before, Chicago had been torn apart by a race riot that began when white bathers had stoned a young black boy who swam, unwitting, across the invisible line that segregated the Lake Michigan beach. The boy had drowned. Over the next week, fifteen whites and twenty-three blacks were killed, and the U.S. army was called in as a peace-keeping force.

  “They come floodin’ up here from the South like locusts,” said Hornsby. “They want our jobs, they want our women.”

  “According,” said Miss Lizzie, speaking for the first time, “to whom?”

  Hornsby looked at her. “Common knowledge.”

  She pursed her lips. “Common indeed.”

  “Mr. Hornsby,” said Mr. Slocum, “you wouldn’t be, by any chance, a member of the Invisible Empire?”

  “I’m a Kleagle,” said Hornsby. A Kleagle (as Mr. Slo cum later explained) was a representative of, and sold memberships in, the Ku Klux Klan. “And proud of it. Someone’s got to do something to save this country from the niggers and the Jews. The nigger population, right here in town, has doubled since before the war.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Slocum. “From ten to twenty. And correct me if I’m wrong, Mr. Hornsby, but aren’t you from thè South yourself?”

  “So what?” Hornsby said. “I came up here to get away from their kind. Raise my family where the living was clean and pure. And now look. Niggers everywhere. Killing white women in broad daylight.”

  “I think,” said Miss Lizzie, “that we’ve heard enough. Thank you for coming, Mr. Hornsby.”

  Hornsby uncrossed his arms and put them along the arms of the chair. He looked at Mr. Slocum, at Miss Lizzie, at Boyle, who smiled pleasantly at him, smoke trailing from his nostrils. “I shoulda known,” Hornsby said. “I shoulda known you’d try to screw me outta the money.”

  Mr. Slocum calmly said, “Thank you for coming, Hornsby.”

  Hornsby glared at him. “You a nigger lover, Slocum? I hear you Harvard boys are like that, when you’re not too busy lovin’ each other.”

  Boyle put his cigarette carefully into the ashtray, then stood up. “Okay, ace,” he said. “Time to get back to the padded room and count your toes.”

  Hornsby stood to face him. “Whatta we got here? ’Nother nigger lover?”

  “Nah,” said Boyle. “I’m a nigger. I’m passing.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Out.”

  “You gonna make me, fatboy?” His knobby hands opened and closed.

  Boyle smiled sleepily. He was a head shorter than Hornsby. “That’ll be swell,” he said. “I haven’t stomped a moron before lunch in almost a week.”

  Hornsby swung his big right fist. I have never seen anyone move as quickly as Boyle did then. He stepped forward, caught Hornsby’s swing on his left forearm, then smashed his own right fist, swiftly, twice, at Hornsby’s face, driving the big man back. His left arm slipped away from Hornsby’s right and the fist crashed down on Hornsby’s jaw. The big man’s head jerked back and he sat down, legs asprawl. His nose was bleeding and his eyes were dazed.

  Boyle came around, grabbed him by the left arm, tugged him effortlessly to his feet, and held him there. “Gotta watch those carpets, ace. They slip, you can take a nasty fall.”

  Hornsby had his hand to his mouth. He said, “You knocked a tooth loose, you son of a bitch.”

  “Put it under your pillow,” said Boyle. “Maybe you can pick up some pocket change.”

  Hornsby yanked his arm free. “You gonna be sorry, fatboy.”

  “Sure. See you in the funny papers.” He stabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “Be missing.”

  Hornsby, his eyes narrowed, looked around the room. “You people all gonna be sorry.”

  Boyle took a step forward. “You looking for some more change?”

  Hornsby edged back, still unsteady on his feet. He glanced around the room again, then turned and walked, swaying slightly, to the door. He opened it, looked back to Boyle, and said, “I’ll see you again, fat-boy.”

  Boyle smiled. “Be a treat, ace.”

  As Hornsby left, Boyle returned to his chair. He sat down and stared at his right hand while he flexed it for a moment, opened and closed, opened and closed, as if making sure that everything still worked. Apparently, everything did. He shook it once, as though it were wet, then plucked his Fatima from the ashtray and said to Miss Lizzie, “Sorry about that. Didn’t look like he wanted to go.”

  Miss Lizzie smiled. “No apology is necessary, Mr. Boyle. I’m very grateful that you handled it as you did. And for doing so without damaging any of the furniture. You do have,” she added, “a very nice jab.”

  Boyle grinned behind a cone of smoke. “Thanks.”

  I said, “You were great, Mr. Boyle.”

  “Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “A lucky punch.”

  “I’d like to add my thanks as well,” said Mr. Slocum, smiling. “For your springing so quickly into action in defense of my honor.”

  “Hey.” Boyle grinned. “No sweat, counselor. Professional courtesy.” He looked at Miss Lizzie. “Okay. Where do you want me to start?”

  “I think, as I said before, that you should begin with Mrs. Burton’s friends here in town. I’m sure Amanda can give you a list of them. I realize that it’s going to be difficult, but perhaps one of them does know something about this blackmail.”

  “Alleged blackmail,” said Mr. Slocum.

  She nodded. “If you like.”

  Boyle asked her, “You want me to talk to this Charlie, the guy Hornsby was gassing about? The chicken guy?”

  “I think it might be a good idea, yes. From what I know him of him, Amanda is right. He couldn’t have been responsible for Mrs. Burton’s death. But according to your good friend Mr. Hornsby, Charlie was in the neighborhood at the time. It may be that he saw something.”

  “According to Hornsby,” sa
id Boyle, “Charlie wasn’t the only guy in the neighborhood at the time.”

  “Yes,” said Miss Lizzie. “I realize that. Hornsby has admitted, obviously, that he was there himself. But can you think of a single reason why he might kill Mrs. Burton?”

  “Not yet,” admitted Boyle. “But I’ll keep working on it.”

  After the meeting, Mr. Slocum returned to his office, Miss Lizzie went upstairs—to read, she said—and Boyle sat with me in the parlor, writing down in his notebook the names of Audrey’s acquaintances. There were not many. Mrs. Mortimer; Mrs. Sheehy, the local milliner; Mrs. Maybrick, who was spending, with her banker husband, her first summer at the shore; and Mrs. Marlowe.

  “But Mrs. Marlowe hasn’t come by much lately,” I told him.

  “Why’s that?” Boyle asked, looking up from the notebook.

  “I don’t know. Maybe she hasn’t been feeling well. She’s real old, almost eighty, and she has a hard time moving around.”

  “Who is this Miss Marlowe?”

  “She’s sort of the important lady here in town. She has a big lawn party every year, at the end of the summer, and everyone wants to go. Do you know what I mean?”

  He nodded. “The big cigar. Your stepmother ever go over to her house?”

  “She used to, at the beginning of the summer, but I don’t think she’s gone there for a while.”

  “How long a while are we talking?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe a month. Do you think it’s important?”

  “Dunno. Have to find out, looks like. Anybody else you can think of?”

  “No, not really. Audrey didn’t have too many friends.”

  “Yeah.” He folded the notebook, slipped it into his inside jacket pocket. “Okay, kid, thanks.”

  “Mr. Boyle?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think you can find out who killed Audrey?”

  “I dunno, kid. Gonna give it a try. But usually, see, it’s the cops work these things out best.” He took a drag of his Fatima.