Chapter 18
IH82W8
“Austrid must have spent hours looking for that note, long after it was clear it did not exist. She was not rational. She even thought Thomas might have had something to do with it. She was – afraid – of him!” Home from the doctor, Charlie for the first time was telling Claire the whole story, from beginning to end, of how she had found Elizabeth. Her appointment had triggered the memory of what another doctor had said, long ago, about how painful a death suicide by hanging was.
Claire put up her hand. “Wait a minute, Charlie. Go back. What did you mean when you said there was a lot of blood on the back of Elizabeth’s head? But I thought she died by hanging.”
Charlie colored. “I told you. She fell when Tom cut her down, she fell like a sack of potatoes. I could not hold her. I tried to, but she was far heavier than I. Her head hit the china hutch.”
“But Charlie - dead bodies don’t bleed.”
A pause hung in the air. Then Charlie grabbed one of Claire’s hands between hers. Her fingers were like ice. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. The heart isn’t pumping any longer.”
“My God! I had seen that in the camps, but those were women who had been dead for some time.” Claire tried not to imagine what her friend might have seen. “I never thought of it where Elizabeth was concerned. I felt guilty about not being able to hold on to her.” She hesitated. “But then where did the blood come from? And how did it get there?”
Claire tried to think of another explanation. “Maybe Elizabeth was still alive when you found her, but unconscious?”
“No. Tom checked for a pulse. And her body was already cooling.” Charlie closed her eyes. “Tom had to cut her down quickly. He put the blade under the rope and turned it. I saw later that it had cut her neck a little.” Charlie tilted her chin back and touched the side of her throat. Her eyes opened. “But the cut had not bled. It made a thin red line, no more.”
“So must have been she dead when you found her. But her head – tell me more about it.”
Charlie’s eyelids closed again, but her eyes did not stop moving, as if she were seeing into the past. She raised her hand to the back of her head, a few inches above her nape and to the left. “Here it was,” she hesitated, her words coming slower, “soft and broken. Like when a windscreen is cracked, but it still holds together even though it is in a thousand tiny pieces. The back of Elizabeth’s head was like that. And there was blood matting her hair.”
“Matting?” Claire zeroed in on that one word. “You mean it was tacky? Sticky? Like drying blood?
Charlie’s eyes snapped open again. “Yes. Like drying blood. So whatever happened to Elizabeth, must have happened before, not after we found her. We were not to blame.”
But who was, Claire wondered. A feeling like an electric shock straightened her spine. “Could Elizabeth have been – murdered?”
Charlie shook her head, but more in confusion than denial. “Elizabeth was pregnant and scared. It makes sense that she killed herself. As much sense as it ever can.”
“But her death could have made sense for other people, as well.” Claire leaned forward. “Suppose Allen Lisac didn’t want everyone to know that Elizabeth was pregnant? He could have killed her in a fit of passion, and then tried to make it look like a suicide. Tried to cover everything up. And it worked. You told me his father had everything hushed up. No wonder. They were trying to cover up a lot more than a pregnancy. And that must be why Allen’s mother was so intent on finding a note – because she guessed the truth – that it wasn’t a suicide at all.” Claire’s headlong rush faltered. “Are you sure about the blood, though, Charlie? Are you sure about what you saw?”
“At my age, I am nothing but memories. I will ask Tom, but I am sure he will say the same. Which means that someone killed her. Someone killed her and walked away untouched. For fifty years, they have gone unpunished.” Her eyes burned like blue flames in her otherwise colorless face. “That is not right. It is not just.”
Claire faced reality. “But it’s probably fifty years too late to find out the truth now. Even if Tom agrees with you, what does it matter? No one will want to open up a fifty-year-old suicide.”
“You do not understand, Claire-le. I need to know for myself. When I found Elizabeth dead, I did not allow myself to worry and pick at it. This was my new country. I did not want to believe that here there was evil. I had learned to be good at not thinking about things. I had learned – I had had to learn - how to leave the past behind. Now I wish I had not closed my eyes. I owe it to Elizabeth to find out the truth.” Charlie took the ring from the drawer and picked up her keys. “And the key is Allen. He lied about the ring. And you are right that he had a reason to kill her. But he might not be the only one. You say they are home now - come with me to return it. I want to watch him and Mary both when they see the ring, but I cannot watch two people at one time. I want to know if it was a surprise to them that the ring was in the wall, or if they knew it all along. Come with me, Claire. I knew these people well once, but it was such a long time ago. You have young, fresh eyes. Maybe you will see something that I will miss.”
“I can’t, Charlie.” It was hard to say no in the face of her roommate’s intensity. “I promised Dante.”
“Then I must do it myself.” Charlie turned on her heel and marched out of the room.
Chapter 19
1944
The French girl does not get into line fast enough. An SS sets the dog on her. The fangs pierce the girl’s throat.
A single cry hangs in the air. Charlotte does not know who has made it, the dying or the living.
After, the SS wipes the blood from the dog’s muzzle with a folded white handkerchief. With the toe of his boot, he turns the girl’s body over, the way he might a deer.
The other women are still and silent, watching him.
Chapter 20
URNTS
“You wear glasses, Ms. Montrose?” Claire turned away from the display of reading glasses at Fred Meyer. Wearing his standard dirty red flannel shirt and staring at her with undisguised curiosity was Jason, the little boy she read to once a week. Actually, Jason read to her – at seven he could make his way through chapter books with no problem. Claire had the feeling his teacher had enrolled him in SMART not so much to help his reading as to expose him to an adult who had her life more or less together.
“Jase – come on!” A gangly teenager, hair buzzed close to his scalp, stalked down the aisle toward them.
Jason looked at her shyly. “This is my brother, Matt. Matt, this is my reading buddy, Ms. Montrose.”
“Hello.”
Matt grunted in reply. From Jason, Claire knew Matt had twice run away from home, and that he had been in trouble for shooting a pellet gun into a crowd and hitting someone in the leg. Last spring his father had sent him to a boot camp in Eastern Oregon, but from what Claire had been able to gather, he had come back little changed.
While Jason’s eyes were brown, Matt’s were an odd, nearly startling green. He didn’t look much like his brother. It was clear that one of Jason’s parents was black. Jason had milk chocolate skin and not quite nappy hair, whereas Matt’s olive skin and black-stubbled head made him look Italian.
Whoever their mother or mothers had been, they were long gone now. From what Jason said, he had grown up without a mom. At school, he seemed starved for female affection. He always managed to sit as close to Claire as possible, and would have happily sat in her lap to read if she had let him. Since she didn’t, he had to content himself with frequent hugs.
He gave her one now, nearly knocking her off balance. “Bye, Ms. Montrose.”
Just past Jason were racks of kids’ clothes, the riot of bright colors and designs a cruel contrast to the frayed ends of his sleeves. Claire was seized with a sudden inspiration.
“You know what today is, Jason? It’s my birthday.” Her birthday was a month away. “And in my family, we have a tradition. We always buy s
omeone a present on our birthday. It brings you good luck the whole year.”
“It does?” Wide-eyed, Jacob hung on every word. Matt, standing behind him, pursed his lips and shot her a skeptical glance.
“So in order for me to have good luck this year, I need to buy you a new shirt.” Claire wanted to buy him a dozen shirts, as well pants, socks, underwear and shoes, but she knew she would be lucky to get away with buying him a single shirt.
“Really?” Jason threw his arms around her thighs so tightly that Claire nearly toppled over.
Over his head, her eyes met Matt’s. He shrugged and muttered, “Whatever.”
###
At Fred Meyer, besides buying Jason a long-sleeved blue shirt with a silk-screened picture of a fire-breathing dragon on the front, Claire also purchased a pair of reading glasses with heavy black plastic frames and the smallest possible correction. In the tiny mirror bolted to the top of the display, Claire looked more like a gangly adolescent boy who spent a lot of time online involved in role-playing games.
The reading glasses made the air look filmy, so Claire took them off them to drive home. Now Claire stood with Charlie on the Lisacs’ doorstep, wearing the best disguise she had been able to devise in a couple of hours. She knew she was risking Dante’s anger, but at the same time she couldn’t abandon her friend. A few years back, Charlie had saved Claire from becoming the kind of never-married woman who still lived at home with her mother. Oh, Charlie would have claimed she had gotten the better end of the deal, gaining a roommate to help maintain her eighty-year-old house as well as pay the property taxes, but Claire knew she was the one who had really benefited. Charlie had become more mother to her than her own had ever been. She had expanded Claire’s horizons about food, life, love and art. Claire owed Charlie a lot.
Which was why she was now wearing her hair in a bun so tight it slitted her eyelids. On top she had jammed a black baseball cap so that not a single red curl – her most distinctive feature – escaped to identify her. Dressed in baggy sweatpants and a loose sweatshirt bulked up with two sweaters underneath, she had looked in the bathroom mirror and gotten a pretty good idea of what she would look like if she stopped running and kept eating Doritos.
The plan was that Claire would refrain from giving her name, keep her head ducked down and observe Mary when the other woman was busy looking in some other direction. Like at the ring. There was no way Allen Lisac could connect her with Dante. If he ever did meet her, it wouldn’t be until after the museum had already made the decision about who would curate the wing that would have Allen Lisac’s name above the doors. And once the decision was made, then it wouldn’t matter much if he recognized her.
The door to the Lisac’s house was so large that Charlie had to stand on tip-toe to reach the knocker. But there was no answering sound of footsteps. A few seconds later, Howard popped out of his door and walked across the driveway. His expression turned from puzzlement to delight when he saw Charlie. Claire didn’t think he noticed her at all. He brought both hands up as far as his waist, and then didn’t seem to know what to do with them, as if torn between hugging Charlie, squeezing her shoulders, or shaking her hand. He finally settled for a two-handed handshake.
“Charlie? Charlie Heidenbruch? Gosh, how long has it been seen we last saw each other – five, six years? You look wonderful.” He seemed so delighted that it crossed Claire’s mind that Charlie had been wrong, that it hadn’t been Elizabeth who Howard had secretly longed for, all those years ago.
“You are looking well yourself, Howard,” Charlie was saying. He did look like he had made an effort, and Claire guessed he might be expecting visitors other than themselves. The edge of a new-looking white T-shirt peeked through the blue cotton shirt he wore, open a single button at the neck. His jeans were even pressed. She imagined him carefully choosing each item, scrutinizing himself front and back, combing hair over his bald spot, managing to make his preparations fill up an entire morning.
“So you came to see Allen and Mary, but not me,” he said in a mock-chiding tone. “I’m afraid they went out to lunch, but they should be back soon.” Howard gave Claire an odd look, and she knew he was trying to place her. “Why, I remember you. Usually you’re not wearing so many –” he stopped himself, coloring. “You’re the one who wanted to know about my wall. My, it’s a small world. Are you related to Charlie?”
“She is my housemate,” Charlie said. “And a dear friend.”
The lawnmower stilled, and then Matt appeared, pushing it from Howard’s backyard to the front. His eyes were half-closed, and he had headphones in his ears. Claire had seen him around the neighborhood before, mowing other people’s lawns. She was relieved when he didn’t see to register her presence.
Howard said, “I guess I’ve only seen you in your running clothes – I almost didn’t recognize you in your civilian garb.” He still looked a little puzzled. “I think of her as our lady of perpetual motion. Trotting up the hill day after day. And then last week she was asking questions about the Lisac’s wall, wanting to know more about it. I told her the stones came from the river. I didn’t tell her your boyfriend was the one who built it.” The lawnmower started up again, so loud he had to raise his voice to be heard over it. “I’m forgetting my manners. You ladies should come inside.”
Charlie was already shaking her head. “No, Howard, I don’t think-.”
Howard’s tone was wheedling. “I’ve got home-made brownies. No one can say no to brownies. Why don’t you visit with me a little while you wait for the Lisacs to come home?”
“So it won’t be long until they come back?”
Howard’s smile exposed his snaggly teeth. “I expect them back any minute. Come on, come on.” He opened the door. “I don’t think you’ll find it’s changed that much, Charlie. A few more books, maybe.”
Once inside the house, Claire looked around, half-expecting an old man’s bachelor pad, with perhaps a painting of a reclining nude above the fireplace, or a wet bar with glasses decorated with bare-breasted Tahitian ladies. Instead, it was spick and span and suburban. The house was old enough that it must have oak floors, but they were hidden by flat tan carpets. The living room held a beige-striped couch, a spindly-legged chair, and a wheat-colored La-Z Boy lounger in front of a TV inside an open armoire. Next to the door, an umbrella stand held a furled golf umbrella. The only deviation from the blandness was the wall of built-in bookcases crammed with books.
There was no painting above the mantelpiece, just mirrored tiles. They were probably supposed to make the room look larger. Instead they just made Claire feel like she was in a fun house, as she kept catching her reflection out of the corner of her eye.
The whole house was so small Claire could see most of it from where she stood. A hallway to the left of her, the twelve-foot by fourteen-foot living room in front of her, a dining room that was more suggestion than reality to her right, with a cramped kitchen jutting off it. “It’s not much, but it’s home.” Howard said. “It actually started out as the home for the hired help. Back in those days, this place was considered to be out in the country, so the help had to live in.”
Outside the dining room, a bird feeder hung from a maple tree that grew close to the house. On the windowsill were a pair of binoculars, an open narrow notebook, and Birds of Oregon.
“You girls want a cup of coffee? I’ve got instant. Or tea if you want it. And I’ve got those brownies I told you about.” Howard squeezed past the narrow dining table, then quickly swept the red box that read “Betty Crocker” off the counter and into the garbage under the sink. He turned and Claire pretended she hadn’t seen. Then Howard caught sight of a squirrel that was trying to climb out to the bird feeder. He leaned forward and slapped the window. His fingernails were thickened and yellow. “Get away!” It hesitated, then ran down the trunk. “Like rats with fluffy tails,” he muttered in disgust. Picking up the pan of brownies, Howard turned back to Charlie and Claire. “Or instead of coffee, would you girls
rather have milk?”
Howard was the kind of host who wouldn’t be satisfied until you had expressed a need and he had filled it, so Charlie requested tea and Claire took a chance on the instant coffee. When she had lived with her mother, it had been all she drank. She found her taste buds had changed in the past few years, though, so she had to wince her way through every bitter, sludgy swallow.
Howard and Charlie made small talk about what they had been doing for the past six years, then gradually their conversation reached further and further back into the past.
“This time of the year, I always find myself thinking about Elizabeth,” Howard said as he got up to put clear the dishes. “There’s not many of us now who remember her. And once we’re gone….” His words trailed off.
“It is about Elizabeth that we wanted to see Allen and Mary,” Charlie said. “A piece of the past has turned up in the present.”
“What do you mean?” Howard stopped and turned.
“It is why Claire was stopping by Allen’s house last week. She found something in his wall that she wanted to return.”
“In the wall?” Howard echoed.
Charlie turned to Claire. “Show him.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t show it to you when I met you,” Claire said, as she pulled the drawstring bag from her jacket pocket. “It just seemed so valuable I was afraid to turn it over to someone I had just met.” She shook out the ring onto her palm. “Of course, now that Charlie has told me how close you are with the Lisacs…” Her words trailed off.