‘Why?’
‘I’m working on her sister’s murder. I need her.’
He thought about it. ‘Columbia University. The Mary Higgens House. It’s in the book.’
I found another drugstore. At The Mary Higgens House they passed me along the line until I reached a crisp female voice of uncertain age who had to be the boss. I explained who I was, and what I wanted. She thought about it, too.
‘I see,’ she said at last. ‘Sarah said that if we needed her she would be at home, or at her sister’s apartment.’
I thanked her, and went out for another taxi. This time the cab went through the park. The soccer players had ended their match, and sat on the grass looking as if no one had won. They looked as if they thought that no one could win. Men have to have more than themselves to live for, something they can believe will go on after them. It doesn’t matter if it’s true, only that they believe it. Children and money aren’t enough, especially money. That is what the solid core of our nation doesn’t understand, and that is why we are in trouble.
At Anne Terry’s apartment the buzzer answered my ring. Upstairs, Sarah Wiggen had the door open, was working over a floor full of cardboard boxes. Her hair hung in her eyes, and she wore slacks and an old sweater that made her look more alive. She hadn’t touched the files as far as I could see.
‘Where do they go?’ I asked, nodding at the boxes.
She brushed the hair from her eyes. A soft gesture that raises a woman’s breasts gently. ‘I went over to see them, Sally Anne and Aggy. Do all children talk so much, I wonder? They were all over me: Aunt Sarah. Sally Anne talked about her mother. She said she’d have to take care of her father. Little Aggy moves her arms and legs just to watch them move. They’re so alive, aren’t they? It makes you happy.’
‘Sad, too,’ I said. ‘You’re taking these things out?’
‘What they want. I bought toys, too.’
‘Are you taking her files?’
‘No.’
I went to the files. The page with the typed note on the back was missing. It had not been replaced with a revised page. Maybe the police had taken a revised page, but I thought not.
‘Why not take the files, her papers?’
‘Who would I give them to?’ It was her first reference to Ted Marshall. She looked out of a window. ‘You heard last night? Of course you did. Am I that hungry, frustrated? I suppose I am. I wanted his hands on me. Anne, alive or dead, just didn’t matter. What he had done didn’t matter, or what he was: weak. I hated Anne, didn’t I? Because men wanted to take her, and who wanted to take me? If he came back to me, I’d have won.’
‘Maybe it’s good,’ I said. ‘We go on that way.’
‘I can feel his hands in my mind, but his hands can’t feel anything,’ she said. ‘Who killed him, Mr Fortune?’
‘I’m working on it,’ I said. ‘Who’s Emory Foster, Sarah?’
‘What?’ She packed an ash tray. ‘A friend, I told you.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It came to me, you call him Mr Foster. Yesterday you sent him here, no, he offered to come here for you, and when I saw you around 6 p.m., he should have been back with you, but he wasn’t. Who is he, Sarah?’
‘I call his Mister because he’s old.’
She went on packing, but there was a change-the pleasure was gone. She had been mobile, talking, and now I saw the stiff reluctance in her where she knelt packing. She had been open, and she had closed.
I said, ‘When you first reported Anne missing, you didn’t mention Ricardo Vega. You’ve told me you went to the police to make trouble for Ted Marshall, you were sure Marshall was the man involved. You didn’t care about Vega-your own words, Sarah. Next day, you suddenly did tell the police about Vega. After Emory Foster had come to you?’
It was a question. She didn’t answer, so I went on. ‘I don’t think you knew Ricardo Vega existed, Sarah. Not as Anne’s lover. You weren’t close to Anne; she kept her life very secret. That was her way. You only knew about Ted Marshall because she took him from you. You never met Emory Foster before Monday. He came to you the way I did-he read the news story.’
She stopped her packing now, but she didn’t look up. ‘All right, yes, he read the paper, he wanted to help find Anne. He came to ask if I knew about Ricardo Vega. I didn’t know, so he told me, and I told the police. That’s all.’
‘Help find Anne? He never heard of Anne. Why come to a total stranger, you, to help find another stranger?’
‘You came!’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I came. Why did I come? I owed Anne something, I’m a trained detective, but was that my real reason? No, I came to try to get Vega! I think Emory Foster did the same-with a big difference. I called you Monday night, remember? Someone was with you. I told you I was going to Anne’s apartment-coming here. I found Anne later that night! Was Foster with you? You just happened to mention where I was going?’
Her head was down, hair dangling like a curtain over her face, as if too much weight rested on her neck. She didn’t seem worried, or evasive, only reluctant, being made to do something she didn’t want to do. Her voice was unfriendly.
‘He was there, yes. I might have mentioned you.’
‘And he left right away?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Do you know his real name?’
‘Foster is the name he told me.’
‘How do I find him, Sarah?’
‘I don’t know. You proved I hardly know him.’
‘He would have given you a way to contact him. I’ll find him. Sarah, but I’m in a hurry. You want more killing, maybe?’
She was sullen. ‘I’ve got an address at home, somewhere.’
‘Let’s go,’ I said.
She got her coat to cover her old clothes, and we went down for a taxi. We rode in silence. The driver took the West Side highway to avoid the lunch-time traffic. The river was high with the spring flow, cleaner, and some rusty big ships blew steam and water and looked happy now that winter was over. Sarah Wiggen watched the river, and the big ships straining for the open sea, and maybe that changed her mood.
‘Have you ever felt purged?’ she said.
‘I don’t know, maybe.’
‘Cleaned out?’ she said. ‘Brain and body purged clean. When they told me Ted was dead, it seemed to clean me out inside. Last night I was like a starving female mouth: all flesh, thick. Today I feel all space. Clean, and far apart in a wide sky as if Anne and Ted had never been part of me. I feel… free.’
‘You were in love with Marshall?’
She considered it. ‘I wanted him to love me and not Anne. That’s all I can say. When he dropped me, I quit everything.’
‘For him?’
‘My excuse, yes. The truth is I didn’t have what it takes,’ she said. She looked away from the river toward midtown and the theatre district we were passing. ‘I was setting nowhere in the theatre. No one hired me, said I was good. Anne used to say that if you haven’t given up, you haven’t failed. I don’t know what it takes to never quit, never accept any judgment except your own. Courage, or arrogance, or stupidity, maybe, but I don’t have it. It’s not in me.’
‘Anne had it, yes,’ I said. I could see her standing in the rain, alone, only herself.
‘She had the abortion because she wouldn’t give up, settle for less than she had to have. The arrogance, or courage, or stupidity to risk all the way,’ Sarah said, still watching the indifferent city spread out in the spring sun. ‘I’ll live all my life knowing I settled for less. You don’t marry a house in New Rochelle without always knowing that all you have is less than you wanted. I’m a smaller person than my sister. Possibly even a better person, but smaller. I don’t think I can fool myself that anything I do now will matter very much.’
