Miss Lizzie Read online

  Chief Da Silva: Why would she do that?

  Miss Borden: We were discussing the similarities between our two houses. They are, for the most part, identical. She told me then where the guest room was.

  Chief Da Silva: And you remembered this three weeks later?

  Miss Borden: Do you find that remarkable?

  Chief Da Silva: I find it impressive.

  Miss Borden: That does not surprise me.

  Mr. Slocum: I think we’ve covered this point sufficiently, don’t you, old man?

  Chief Da Silva: What did you do after you discovered the body of Mrs. Burton?

  Miss Borden: I returned to my house.

  Chief Da Silva: And then?

  Miss Borden: I made a telephone call.

  Chief Da Silva: To whom?

  Miss Borden: To my lawyer, in Boston.

  Chief Da Silva: You didn’t telephone the police?

  Miss Borden: You know quite well that I did.

  Chief Da Silva: But only after you telephoned a lawyer.

  Miss Borden: Yes.

  Chief Da Silva: Why is that, Miss Borden?

  Miss Borden: I wanted to protect Miss Burton’s interests.

  Chief Da Silva: What led you to believe her interests might be in jeopardy?

  Miss Borden: I have had some small experience with the police before.

  Chief Da Silva: And when might that’ve been, Miss Borden?

  Mr. Slocum: I don’t see that my client has any reason to answer that question.

  Chief Da Silva: Why not? Does she have something to hide, Mr. Slocum?

  Mr. Slocum: Any experience that Miss Borden may’ve had with the police would be a matter of record. And it would also be totally irrelevant to this inquiry.

  Chief Da Silva: Miss Borden is not under arrest, counselor.

  Mr. Slocum: Ah. I thought that perhaps that small fact had escaped your notice.

  Chief Da Silva: Would you like to answer the question, Miss Borden?

  Mr. Slocum: As her lawyer, I advise Miss Borden not to answer it.

  Chief Da Silva: Miss Borden?

  Miss Borden: Yes.

  Chief Da Silva: Would you like to answer the question?

  Miss Borden: I think not.

  Chief Da Silva: You refuse to answer the question?

  Mr. Slocum: She just said so. Does memory serve me correctly, or didn’t you say something yesterday about not badgering witnesses?

  Chief Da Silva: Slocum, I’m growing a bit tired of you.

  Mr. Slocum: And here I thought we were getting along swimmingly.

  Chief Da Silva: And so, Miss Borden, you telephoned your lawyer. What was the result of that call?

  Miss Borden: He told me he would telephone a local lawyer, Mr. Slocum here, and ask him to come to my house.

  Chief Da Silva: Which of course, being the conscientious soul he is, Mr. Slocum immediately did.

  Mr. Slocum: Nicely phrased, old man.

  Chief Da Silva: Miss Borden, how many other telephone calls did you make before you called the police?

  Miss Borden: One.

  Chief Da Silva: To whom?

  Miss Borden: To Dr. Bowen.

  Chief Da Silva: For what purpose?

  Miss Borden: Miss Burton was in shock. I felt she needed a doctor.

  Chief Da Silva: And then, finally, you called the police.

  Miss Borden: Yes.

  Chief Da Silva: Do you have any idea who might’ve murdered Mrs. Burton?

  Miss Borden: None.

  Chief Da Silva: Can you tell us anything further that might help?

  Miss Borden: No.

  Chief Da Silva: Nothing?

  Miss Borden: Nothing.

  Chief Da Silva: Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Borden.

  The stenographer sheathed the nib of her pen in its cap and flipped her notebook closed.

  Mr. Slocum said to Da Silva, “Before you go, old man, I wonder if you’d agree to increase the police guard outside Miss Borden’s house.”

  Da Silva was frowning, annoyed. “I have only a limited number of officers, Slocum. Half of them are already occupied with this case, and the rest are doing twice the work they should be.”

  “I realize that,” Mr. Slocum said. “But you’ve seen that crowd outside. They’re only a single sluggish thought away from turning into a mob. Far be it from me to tell you your job, but imagine how it will look in the newspapers if something were to happen to Miss Borden or young Miss Burton.”

  Da Silva smiled. Briefly. “What would I do, Slocum, without your concern for my good name?”

  “Think nothing of it, old man.”

  Da Silva nodded. “Very well. Two more officers.”

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Slocum.

  Da Silva stood. Then Medley stood, then the stenographer, then the rest of the men in the room.

  “After Miss Mullavey has transcribed her notes,” said Da Silva, “someone will bring the statements here for Miss Borden and Miss Burton to sign.”

  “I have every confidence in Miss Mullavey,” said Mr. Slocum, smiling gallantly at the short stenographer. (I knew that he was only being pleasant, but I wondered why he would bother for such a mousy, drab little thing.)

  Da Silva’s glance flicked to mine, and I looked into his dark unfeeling eyes. “Do you happen to remember, Miss Burton, what clothes your brother was wearing yesterday?”

  I looked at Father. He nodded.

  “He had on a white shirt and white pants,” I said. “And white shoes.” I remembered him bursting into the kitchen as bright and handsome as a movie star, grinning hugely and moving, despite his size, with an effortless grace.

  Da Silva was nodding to Officer Medley. “That corroborates Mrs. Mortimer’s description.”

  Father said to him, “How is that you haven’t found him yet?”

  Da Silva turned to him. “We’ve been looking for him, Mr. Burton, for only a day now. But we’ll find him.” These last words were spoken with such a finality that neither Father nor I could draw much comfort from them.

  “He had nothing to do with what happened to Audrey,” Father said. “I know that.”

  “Then,” said Da Silva, “the sooner we find him and eliminate him as a suspect, the better for everyone.”

  Father said nothing, merely took a long deep breath.

  “One more thing,” said Da Silva, and turned to the Pinkerton man. “I’m sure you realize, Mr. Boyle, that this is an active murder investigation. If I learn that you’ve obstructed our work in any way, I’ll be very disappointed.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it, Chief,” said Boyle.

  “See that you don’t. I can make life extremely unpleasant for you.”

  “I got the message, Chief. Count on me.”

  “We’ll see our own way out,” Da Silva said to Miss Borden.

  After Medley and Miss Mullavey had trooped out behind Da Silva (Medley forgetting to reward me with another stalwart grin), the men sat down and Boyle said, “Nifty guy. What does he eat for breakfast? Baling wire?”

  Mr. Slocum smiled. “He’s a good policeman.”

  Boyle said, “Wasn’t all that good, him missing those drains.” Grinning, he turned to Miss Lizzie. “I don’t think you put yourself in real solid with the chief there, Miz Borden.”

  Miss Lizzie smiled dryly. “No, I expect not.”

  “He assumed Medley had checked the drains,” said Mr. Slocum. “As Medley should have. But this is the first real homicide investigation those people have handled. Da Silva’s the only one on the force with any real experience. Don’t underestimate him. I don’t think he’ll be making any more assumptions. He’s very smart and he’s very dedicated.”

  “Yeah,” said Boyle, “he seems pretty thrilled with you too.”

  “Ignorant armies”—Mr. Slocum smiled—“clashing by night.”

  Father spoke. “What does it mean, Slocum, their not finding Audrey’s key?”

  Mr. Slocum offered a small shrug. “I real
ly don’t know. Obviously, the police don’t either. But I can tell you what one of its consequences is. It weakens their case against your son. If William had a key, there’d be no reason for him to take Mrs. Burton’s. But someone else, our hypothetical burglar, could’ve taken it and used it to bolt the front door.”

  “I don’t have a key,” I said. “Does that mean they think I took it?”

  “No, Amanda,” Mr. Slocum said, and smiled. “They didn’t ask you, did they? And besides, if they really wanted to make any sort of case, they’d have to prove you took it. You didn’t, did you?”

  “Uh-uh. No.”

  “Okay,” said Boyle. “So what’s next?”

  “Well,” said Mr. Slocum, “what I suggest we do, all of us, is get some rest. We can meet back here tomorrow at, say, eleven o’clock. By then, I’m sure, enough fair citizens of the town will’ve seen Miss Borden’s advertisement and suddenly found themselves spurred by an inexplicable sense of duty. If it’s acceptable to you, Miss Borden, Harry and I’ll round them up and bring them over.”

  Miss Lizzie nodded. “Perfectly acceptable.”

  I asked Mr. Slocum, “Can I listen?”

  He frowned. “I don’t think, Amanda, that you’d find it an especially edifying experience.” He shrugged. “But of course it’s up to your father.”

  Father looked up. “What? Oh. Well, Amanda, yes, I suppose so. If you really want to.”

  He had been lost in thought; worrying, I believed, about William.

  I was worrying about him too. Where on earth had he gone?

  TEN

  MR. SLOCUM LEFT for his office. Father and Harry Boyle left for the Fairview, to get an early dinner, Father promising he would return to say good night before he went to sleep. He had fallen in with Miss Lizzie’s suggestion that he use the Pinkertons to help locate my brother; Boyle would take down whatever information Father provided and transmit it, by telephone, to his agency in Boston.

  Miss Lizzie’s sitting room—in which, as in most sitting rooms of the period, no one ever actually sat—lay on the north side of the building, and from its window I could clearly see our own summer rental. Less than an hour after Da Silva and the others had departed, I watched through the curtain as another detatchment of police arrived. With much honking of horn and ringing of bells, their black van slowly shouldered aside the reluctant crowd before my house.

  Four in all, the policemen tumbled from the van like Keystone Kops and leaned their way through the swarm, which was buzzing now, aroused from its lethargy. Armed with wrenches, hacksaws, sledgehammers, and an empty metal bucket, they rattled up the walk and clattered across the porch to disappear into the house. Behind them, the crowd moaned, hissed, applauded.

  Over the next hour or so I paced back and forth between the sitting room and the parlor, where Miss Lizzie sat at the coffee table practicing glides and palms. (During the time I stayed with her, she never practiced her magic when anyone other than I was present. Nor did she smoke her cigars.)

  Finally the policemen reemerged onto the street, looking morose and secretive, something at which policemen are expert. Two of them wore their shirtsleeves rolled back, displaying forearms calico with grime, and one of these carried the metal bucket, covered now with a towel and, by the way he held it, gingerly, away from his body, no longer empty. The crowd clustered around, murmuring and mumbling, but the policemen shook their heads at jabbered questions, jerked themselves free from clutching fingers. One of them buffeted his way to the front of the van and cranked it astart. Then he and the officer who had towed the bucket drove slowly from the house, backing out down Water Street. The other two officers jostled through the crowd and came along the sidewalk to join Officer O’Hara at the front porch.

  I wandered back to Miss Lizzie. She looked up, cut the deck, and held it out to show me an ace.

  I said, “There are two more policemen on the porch.”

  “Was that the noise I heard? The arrival of the Pretorian guard?”

  “And I think they found something next door. In the drains.” I felt a small shiver; not entirely unpleasant, curl up my spine as I imparted this melodramatic bit of news.

  “I imagine they did,” she said, looking down to give the cards an overhand shuffle. She seemed unreasonably blasé considering that a search of the drains had been, after all, her idea. “I’m sure Mr. Slocum will find out about that and let us know.” She split the deck, then riffle-shuffled. “How would you like to learn the Nikola system?”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a stacked deck invented by a man named Louis Nikola. It’s really quite wonderful. Here, sit down and I’ll show you.”

  Briefly, the Nikola system is a method of prearranging the cards. Every position in the deck from one to fifty-two is assigned a name. Each card is also given a name. The name of all clubs except for face cards begins with the letter C; of all hearts, with the letter H; et cetera. The two of clubs, for example, is called can and is located at position twenty-two, which is called nun. One remembers this by picturing the jolly image of a nun drinking from a can.

  Although not (quite) as complicated as it might at first seem, the system does require a good deal of rote work. I spent a week on it before I had the mnemonics down. Once mastered, however, it allows one to perform a range of rather spectacular effects. And, additionally, the first twenty-one cards are stacked for poker, while the entire deck is stacked for whist or bridge. I have made a point, since I learned it, of always carrying a Nikola deck with me. In the Yucatan once, twenty years later, it saved my life.

  But that afternoon, Miss Lizzie had hardly begun explaining how it worked when she was interrupted by a sudden knock at the front door.

  She set down the cards and frowned at me. “You’d best stay here, Amanda,” she said, and stood up.

  I waited until she was out in the hallway before I followed her.

  From the entrance to the parlor, I watched her lean toward the door, cock her head, and call out, “Who is it?”

  “Officer O’Hara,” came the answer.

  “What do you want?” Miss Lizzie called.

  “To borrow the use of the facilities, if ya’d be so kind.”

  Miss Lizzie hesitated for a moment, then turned the bolt. She eased open the door as though she were ready, indeed eager, to slam it shut.

  Both of them were careful not to touch each other. Officer O’Hara edged into the’ hallway and deferentially adjusted the brim of his cap; Miss Lizzie backed away. “Ma’am,” said O’Hara.

  “Down the hallway, on the left,” Miss Lizzie said over her shoulder.

  “Thank ya, ma’am,” he said, and adjusted his hat brim again. Then, turning and seeing me, he adjusted it once more. “Miss Burton. Uh. And how are you today?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  “Glad to hear it. Well now”—his glance darting between us rather like a cornered bear’s—“if you’ll just excuse me, I’ll be gettin’ out of your way.” And then, with a brave, rolling, pigeon-toed gait, he sauntered down the hallway.

  Miss Lizzie shut the door, shot the bolt, and turned to me. She made a sour face. “If I didn’t let him in, he’d just go round back and use the yard.”

  I said, “Do you think he’ll tell us what they found next door?”

  “I doubt he knows. Why would anyone tell him?” She saw my disappointment and said, more softly, “Is it really so important for you to know, Amanda?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. I suspect it had something to do with wanting to understand the fragments of what had been, until only yesterday, my life. Chaos had suddenly shattered it, my stepmother murdered, my brother missing; and I think I felt that if I could examine the pieces of rubble, grasp their meaning, then somehow I might be able to restore not my life as it had been, but at least its underlying order. The same belief, that order can ultimately be discovered, is the force that drives policemen and physicists and a
large percentage of paranoiacs. “I just want to know,” I told Miss Lizzie.

  She smiled sadly. “All right, child,” she said. “Ask him, then. The Irishman. I’ll be inside. Just make sure you come to get me before you open the door.”

  “Thank you, Miss Lizzie.”

  She touched me lightly on the cheek with her fingertips and rustled past me into the parlor.

  A few minutes later Officer O’Hara came rolling down the hall. I stood before the door, effectively blocking it.

  “Officer O’Hara?” I said.

  “Yes?” His small eyes were blinking and he was getting his cornered look again.

  “What did they find?”

  The eyes narrowed. “What d’ya mean?”

  “In the drains next door. At my house.”

  “Well, now,” he said, and I think he was trying to be avuncular, “I don’t believe that’s somethin’ a little girl ought to trouble herself about.”

  “I’m not a little girl,” I said. “I’m thirteen. And I’ve already heard worse. And seen worse,” I reminded him.

  He blinked at me, then frowned.

  “Well, ya know,” he said, scratching at his bulbous nose, “I’ve been meanin’ to talk to ya about that. And now I see I’ve got me chance. What it is, I figure I was a mite inconsiderate yesterday, rushin’ in like I did and blabberin’ away like a bloody idiot. I owe ya an apology, and there’s no man alive can say that when Frank O’Hara owes a thing, he don’t pay it up. So I’m here to tell ya, young Miss Burton, that I’m sorry.”

  I blushed. It was, I thought, awfully generous of him. I was old enough to realize how seldom adults apologized to children. But I was also old enough to take advantage of it.

  “Thank you,” I said, smiling as sweetly as a Borgia. “But really, Officer O’Hara, couldn’t you tell me what they found next door?”

  He hesitated. “I’m not so sure, ya know, it’s a good thing to be talkin’ about.”

  “Mr. Slocum, the lawyer, will find out tomorrow anyway. He’ll tell me, I know he will.”

  He frowned in disapproval.

  Perhaps Mr. Slocum had been the wrong tack to take. Back to fundamentals: “Please, Officer O’Hara?”