Miss Lizzie Read online

“Hush,” she said. “Sleep now. I’ll check in on you later.”

  She stood and turned, walked to the door and opened it. She turned back to me and smiled. “In ten years, when you’re twenty-three, he’ll be only thirty-seven.”

  I blushed. Was I so ridiculously obvious?

  “Sleep well, dear.” She smiled and slipped through the door and pulled it shut.

  Ten years, I thought.

  In only a few minutes I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep that lasted until the morning of the following day.

  SIX

  I AWOKE IN the unfamiliar bed to the smell of camphor, a closed-in, claustrophobic smell. The air was hot and still, as dense as broth, and my cotton chemise clung to my damp skin like a mustard plaster.

  A blade of sunlight lanced between the lace curtains behind me, sliced aslant across the room, glinted off the glass-covered walnut cabinet on the opposite wall. On the far side of the dusty glass stood rows of stiff porcelain figurines: shepherds and shepherdesses, rotund grinning burghers and their rotund grinning wives, all their tiny glazed eyes staring idiotically into mine.

  To my right was a dressing table with a clouded mirror set in an ornate but chipped oval of dark wood. To my left was a squat oak writing desk, its worn surface bare, its cubbyholes empty. And there, before it, slumped in the straight-backed chair against the wall, his white-shirted arms folded across his chest, his tie loosened at his neck, his head bowed, one lock of brown hair hanging limply down his forehead, sat Father.

  “Daddy?” I said. “Daddy?”

  His head snapped up and he looked at me. “Amanda,” he said. He stood up so slowly, with such difficulty, that he seemed to be aching with the effort. His shoulders stooped, he crossed the floor and sat beside me on the mattress. His cheeks were sunken, his blue eyes rimmed with red. “How are you, baby?” he said, and his hand moved forward to touch my head.

  “Oh, Daddy,” I said, and I reached out and he drew me up to him, arms tight around me, and, for the first time since I had seen the body of my stepmother, grief clotted in my throat and tears came scalding between my eyelids.

  “Oh, Daddy,” I sobbed. “Daddy.”

  He held me, his hand patting me softly on the back. “Baby,” he said. “Baby.”

  He held me, and all at once I felt against my face a drop, and then another, of my father’s tears. Each trembled there for a moment and then trailed wet and ticklish down my cheek and mingled with my own. I had never seen my father weep before. And then I was sobbing for him, for his loss and for his hurt and even for his gladness at holding me. I held him, and he held me, and together, silently, for a long time we cried.

  After a while, when my sobs had subsided to sniffles and deep ragged sighs, he sat away from me and, breathing through his mouth, scraped at his eyes, first his right and then his left, with the fingertips of his right hand. It was a gesture that I found, in its masculine abruptness, as touching as his tears. He reached back into his rear pocket and plucked from it a neatly folded white cotton handkerchief, opened the thing, and handed it to me. I wiped my puffy eyes (I have never been one of those fortunate and possibly mythical women whom tears make more appealing) and then put it to my nose and trumpeted into it. I looked at him and said forlornly, “I must sound like a goose.”

  He smiled, blinking away a shimmer. “Like a silly goose.”

  I honked into the handkerchief again. “I’m all plugged up,” I said, and frowned.

  “Me too.”

  I gave him back the handkerchief, and he blew his nose, more discreetly than I, sniffed once, blew again, and then returned it to his pocket.

  I said, “Daddy, it was awful.”

  He nodded. “I know, baby. I saw her.”

  “You saw her?” That torn flesh and splintered bone; those awful splatters of blood. “The police made you look?”

  “Down at the hospital.” He inhaled deeply. “Someone had to identify her.”

  “Oh, Daddy.” I put my hand on his.

  He covered it with his other hand. “It’s all right now, Amanda. It’s over now.”

  “That rotten Chief Da Silva. That rat.”

  Squeezing my hand, he shook his head. “No, Amanda. It’s the law. Chief Da Silva was only doing his job.”

  “I don’t like him.”

  “He’s a hard man, but I think a fair one.”

  “I still don’t like him. Daddy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Who could’ve done that to Audrey?”

  He shook his head. “A madman. A maniac. I—”

  Someone knocked at the door. Father called out, “Come in.”

  The door swung open and Miss Lizzie entered, holding upright a tidy stack of clothing. “I heard you talking. I don’t mean to interrupt.”

  She was not apologetic, exactly; I should have a hard time imagining Miss Lizzie apologetic in any circumstances. I believe she was uncomfortable dealing with the obvious intimacy between Father and myself. But whatever the reason, she was subdued, almost businesslike.

  Father said, “Not at all, Miss Borden.”

  She turned to me. “And how are you today, Amanda?” In her voice was that crisp, bright, artificial heartiness with which most adults speak to children. Her manner had none of the closeness and warmth of yesterday: it seemed to imply that the two of us were merely acquaintances and not, as I had come to believe, friends. And, as only a thirteen-year-old can be, I was stung.

  “I’m all right,” I said, my voice sulky.

  She nodded. “I’ve brought some of your things from next door. If you’d like to bathe, the washroom is just down the hall.”

  “Thank you.” I kept my voice cool, noncommittal.

  She set the bundle of clothing on the writing desk and turned to Father. “Have you told Amanda yet about the meeting?”

  “Not yet,” he said.

  “With the police?” I asked.

  “With the lawyer,” he said. “At noon.” He smiled faintly. “A Council of War before we talk to the police.”

  “The lawyer?” I said. “Mr. Slocum?”

  He nodded. “And a Pinkerton man. Miss Borden feels he may be necessary.” From his tone, I gathered that he did not share this feeling.

  “A real private detective?”

  He smiled. “A real private detective.”

  “Well,” said Miss Lizzie, “I’ll leave the two of you alone.” She turned to me. “You’re quite welcome to stay as long as you like, Amanda.” She glanced around the room, disapproval tightening her mouth. “The furniture isn’t mine, of course. It’s the sort of sorry odds and ends you find in any summer rental. We could do something about that, if you like. Bring in some nicer things. Those Dresdens”—with a frown at the figurines—“are particularly odious.”

  “No,” I said, “that’s all right, Miss Lizzie. The room is fine.”

  “Well, let me know if you reconsider.” Then, as though suddenly remembering something, she said, “Are you hungry, child?”

  I discovered, to my surprise, that I was famished. “A little,” I admitted.

  Her face softened. “Good. I’ll bring something up for you.”

  At once I felt guilty for my earlier coolness. “No, Miss Lizzie, really. You don’t have to go to any trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble at all,” she said. “And you need to maintain your strength.” She turned to Father, gave him her businesslike nod. “Until later, then.”

  As she made to leave I called out, “Miss Lizzie?”

  She looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Yes?”

  “Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”

  She smiled then and at once became the Miss Lizzie I remembered, bright gray eyes and dimpled cheeks. “You needn’t mention it, child. It’s been my pleasure.” With another nod to Father she turned and left.

  I looked at him. “She’s been wonderful, Father.” The moment I spoke the word I realized that we were no longer Daddy and baby; Miss Lizzie’s visit had served as a reminde
r of a world other than ourselves. I felt a small quick stab of regret.

  “I know she has,” he said.

  “Would it be all right if I stayed with her for a while?”

  “Well, Amanda,” he said, and stroked his mustache. “I thought we’d get you a room at the hotel, maybe the one next to mine. At least until all this is over with. You’d have a bathroom all to yourself, and the restaurant’s right downstairs.” He made himself smile. “And they’ve got maids to keep the room clean. You wouldn’t have to worry about tidying up.”

  I realized that if Father were trying to appeal to my slovenliness, which within the family was legendary, he must be displeased for some reason by the idea of my staying with Miss Lizzie.

  I said, “Father, she’s my friend. I don’t know what I would’ve done yesterday, if she hadn’t been here to help me.”

  He looked at me for a long moment. Finally he said, “All right. We’ll see how it goes.” Then he gave me another forced smile. “After all, if she’s your friend, you can’t desert her, now can you?”

  “No,” I said, and grinned, pretending, as the situation obliged me to, that his smile was real. “Thank you, Father. What about William? Is he staying at the hotel?”

  The smile faded and he shook his head. “No, Amanda. We can’t find him. I was hoping you might have some idea where he’s gone.”

  “He said yesterday that he and Andy were going up the coast in Andy’s car.”

  He shook his head again. “The police talked to Andy. William never showed up yesterday. No one’s seen him.”

  The Council of War was to take place in Miss Lizzie’s parlor. At a quarter to twelve, we were all waiting there for the Pinkerton man to arrive.

  Father and I sat on the sofa. He was wearing his tie and suitcoat now—a gentleman did not wear shirtsleeves in mixed company—but he looked no less haggard, no less drawn.

  I had not told him yet about the argument yesterday between Audrey and William. He had received enough bad news already, I thought; and, besides, bringing it up would have meant revealing my part in it, and the secret I had been keeping from him all summer. Families are held together as much by what they do not say as by what they do.

  I was wearing a lightweight blue poplin frock trimmed along its hem and cuffs with lace. Audrey had brought it for me in Boston, before we left for the shore. It was a very pretty dress, but the hem fell only five inches from the floor, and for months I had been pleading with her to let me take it up to a more reasonable height. She had maintained that I was still growing, and that sooner or later the hem would catch up with fashion. (Which would happen, I told her, at exactly the same time the cuffs caught up with my elbows.) And so the dress, lovely as it was, had languished all summer long in the closet. I wore it today as a kind of apology for my stubbornness.

  Miss Lizzie, who wore her invariable black, sat in one of the red armchairs, a copy of Harper’s on her lap. Pincenez in place, she leafed idly through the magazine, now and then lingering over a page; but eventually, inevitably, she would look up and glare, her mouth in a thin grim line, off toward the parlor window.

  Somewhat back from the window—through whose lace curtains he could see the street without himself being seen—stood Mr. Slocum, his hands in his pockets, a small thoughtful frown upon his lips. He wore another linen suit today, this one the pale yellow of aged ivory, and with it a light-green shirt and a lime-green tie.

  Father, querulous with fatigue and tension, suddenly said, “Haven’t they got anything better to do?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” said Mr. Slocum, still gazing out the window. “I should think that none of them has ever had anything better to do. Certainly nothing so soul stirring.” He turned to Father and smiled faintly. “Given what passes for souls in those circles.”

  They had begun to gather, Miss Lizzie had told me, early last evening while I was asleep. At first they had been only a silent motionless few; but gradually they had been joined by others, and at midnight, Miss Lizzie said, there must have been two hundred of them. Over the course of the night their number had dwindled; and then, with the dawn, had begun to grow again.

  Now, despite the flat white glare of midday and the oppressive heat that lay like a woolen blanket over the town, a great many more than two hundred stood out there. They choked Water Street, spilled over onto the side streets, blocked every sort of traffic. There were children and there were old people. There were pale clerks in business suits, terra cotta-faced farmers and weathered fishermen in overalls, housewives in drab calico wrappers and shopgirls in modish skirts, many of these holding gaily colored parasols to shield their fair skin from the implacable sun. They milled about, grouping and regrouping with seeming aimlessness, moving as though in a trance, without expression, sometimes looking off, down the street, up at the fierce white sky, over to their fellows; but always looking back again in dull stupefied fascination at the house where Lizzie Borden lived.

  None of them had broached the white picket fence. Perhaps they were kept at bay by the presence of Officer O’Hara, who sat on the porch’s swaybacked wicker loveseat, scowling as he thwacked his nightstick rhythmically against his palm. But more likely, I believe, they were held in check by their own fathomless dread.

  Occasionally one of them, braver than the rest, would shout something—“Show us the axe, Lizzie!”—and another would whoop, and then a ripple of laughter, at once shocked and relieved, would wind through the crowd; and then this would slowly fade, fall off to a murmur which itself slowly died away until all that remained, once again, was that heavy, mindless hush.

  Father said, “You’d think that sooner or later they’d get tired of this.”

  Looking up from her magazine, Miss Lizzie said, “They never get tired of this.”

  (She had told me, earlier, that the telephone had rung all morning, until finally she had called the exchange and demanded that they change her number. She expected, she said, that she would be forced to change it again, possibly several times; and she was.)

  Mr. Slocum leaned slightly forward. “I believe our Pinkerton has landed.”

  We heard mutterings from the crowd, then a spiteful voice calling out, then a clamor as if some great beast were stirring itself, awakening from slumber.

  Mr. Slocum turned to Miss Lizzie. “I’ll just see him in, shall I?”

  “Thank you,” she said, and put aside the magazine.

  He turned and strode from the parlor. Outside, the crowd rumbled and growled.

  I said to Father, “What do they want?” They frightened me, those blank empty faces.

  He ran his hand back through his hair, shook his head. He sighed. “I don’t know, Amanda. I don’t think I want to know.”

  I looked at Miss Lizzie. She seemed about to say something, but then she merely tightened her lips and looked away.

  We heard the front door open and close, heard footsteps; and then Mr. Slocum entered the room with the Pinkerton man. “This,” announced the lawyer, and his ironic smile had returned, his green eyes were glittering again with that private amusement, “is Mr. Boyle.”

  SEVEN

  I AM NOT really sure what I expected. Pinkerton men, I knew, were a bit like sleuths and a bit like sheriffs: They foiled the fiendish schemes of tenement gangsters and they tracked down, on the backs of relentless horses, mustachioed desperadoes who plundered trains. A Pinkerton man should look rather like a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Buffalo Bill; should wear a deerstalker cap and, beneath a silver-buckled belt festooned with sixguns, a pair of gleaming leather chaps.

  He should not look like a short, overweight, middle-aged former prizefighter. He should not be balding. He should not have, shadowing his jowly cheeks, at least two days’ worth of salt-and-pepper stubble. He should not be wearing a brown suit (even I knew that brown suits were worn only on hayrides), especially one that appeared to have been slept in, frequently, and by several insomniacs at once.

  “Call me Harry,” said th
e Pinkerton man. “Sorry I’m late. Had to dump the fliver a couple blocks away. Vultures are pretty thick out there.”

  “No problem, old man,” Mr. Slocum said expansively, clapping him on the back. (I imagined I saw a small cloud of dust puff off Boyle’s shoulders.) “Here, let me introduce you.”

  He led the man around the room, first to me and Father. I nodded and Boyle nodded back. “Please ta meetcha.” Father shook the man’s hand; Mr. Boyle nodded back. “Please ta meetcha.”

  Miss Lizzie, to whom Slocum referred as “Miss Lizbeth A. Borden,” sat stiffly upright, staring at Boyle with her gray eyes startled wide behind the pince-nez. She had, perhaps, been expecting the same dazzling hybrid as I.

  “How do you do?” she said quite formally, and nodded without offering her hand.

  “Swell, thanks,” said Boyle. “Please ta meetcha.” He showed no awareness whatever that this was the famous Lizzie Borden. While I would, of course, have instantly scorned any such reaction, I felt (scornfully) that his failure to provide it was further proof, should any be required, of his utter uselessness. At that point, so far as I was concerned, Boyle really could not win.

  “Sit down, old man,” said Mr. Slocum, smiling, “and I’ll fill you in.”

  Boyle chose the chair opposite Father and only a yard to Miss Lizzie’s right. She seemed to shrink slightly away from him, as though trying, without actually rearranging the furniture, to maximize the distance between them. Mr. Slocum sat in the chair to Miss Lizzie’s left.

  Boyle turned to Miss Lizzie. “Okay if I smoke?” he asked, slipping a crumpled pack of Fatimas from his shirt pocket.

  “Certainly,” she said, starch in her voice. “The ashtray is over there.” This in case he had overlooked it, or had failed to recognize its obvious purpose.

  As Boyle stuck a cigarette between his lips, Mr. Slocum began: “I’ve waited until you were here, Mr. Boyle, so that I need cover the ground only once.”

  “Harry,” said Boyle. Leaning forward, the cigarette bobbing as he spoke, he dug both his hands into his coat pockets, searching for something.