resting on his thighs.
“About last night,” he rumbled, shooting a sudden look over at me. I’d seated him on the love seat, while I was in the wing chair. I didn’t nod; I didn’t speak. I just waited.
“Did you see anything unusual?” He leaned back suddenly, looking straight at me.
“Unusual.” I tried to look thoughtful, but felt I was probably just succeeding in looking stubborn.
“I went to bed about eleven,” I said hastily. I had-the first time, when I’d found I couldn’t sleep. “Marie-Mrs. Hofstettler-told me this morning there was a lot of activity outside, but I’m afraid I didn’t hear it.”
“Someone called me about two-thirty in the morning,” Friedrich said gently. “A woman. This woman said there was a body in the park, across the street from me.”
“Oh?”
“Oh yes, Miss Bard. Now I think this woman saw something, something about how that body got into that park, and I think that woman got scared, or knew who did it and was scared of that person, or maybe had a hand in Pardon Albee’s turning up out there and just didn’t want the poor man to lie in the park all night and get covered in dew this morning. So I think whoever it was, for whatever reason, had some concern about what happened to Pardon’s remains. I sure would like to talk to that woman.”
He waited.
I did my best to look blank.
He sighed, heavily and wearily.
“Okay, Miss Bard. You didn’t see anything and you don’t know anything. But if you think of something,” he said with heavy irony in his voice, “call me day or night.”
There was something so solid about Police Chief Claude Friedrich that I was actually tempted to confide in him. But I thought of my past, and of its emerging, ruining the sane and steady existence I’d created in this little town.
And at this moment, I knew the man was dangerous. I came out of my reverie, to find he was waiting for me to speak, that he knew I was contemplating telling him something.
“Good-bye,” I said, and rose to show him to the door.
Friedrich looked disappointed as he left. But he said nothing, and those gray eyes, resting on me, did not look hostile.
After I’d locked the door behind him, I realized, apropos of nothing, that he was maybe the fifth person who’d entered my house in four years.
On Tuesday evenings at 5:30, I clean a dentist’s office. When I first moved to Shakespeare and was living off my savings (what was left after I’d finished paying what the insurance didn’t cover on my medical bills), while I built up my clientele, Dr. Sizemore had stayed until I got there, watched me clean, and locked the door behind me when I left. Now I have a key. I bring my own cleaning supplies to Dr. Sizemore’s; he prefers it that way, so I charge him a little more. It is a matter of indifference to me whether I use my own supplies or the client’s; I have my favorites, but they have theirs, too. I want to be Lily Bard who cleans; I don’t want to be Busy Hands or Maids to Go or anything business-sounding.
Strictly privately, I call myself Shakespeare’s Sanitary Service.
I’d thought of housecleaning as the ultimate in detachment when I’d decided how I would try to support myself, but cleaning has turned out to be an intimate occupation. Not only have I found out physical details about the people who employ me (for example, Dr. Sizemore is losing his hair and has problems with constipation) but I’ve learned more about their lives, involuntarily, than I feel comfortable with.
Sometimes I amuse myself by writing a fictional column for the biweekly
But who would be interested in a column like that? The things I’ve learned are not things of real interest to anyone, though I was among the first to know that Jerri Sizemore wanted a divorce (the summons from the lawyer had been open on John Sizemore’s desk), and I learned last week that Bobo Winthrop was practicing safe sex with someone while his parents were at the country club dance.
There are lots of things I know, and I’ve never told anyone or even thought of it. But this thing I know, about the death of Pardon Albee… this, I thought, I might have to tell.
It would lead to exposure, I felt in my bones.
My life might not be much, but it’s all I have and it’s livable. I’ve tried other lives; this one suits me best.
I was through at Dr. Sizemore’s at 7:30, and I locked the door carefully, then went home to eat a chicken breast, a roll, and some broccoli sprinkled with Parmesan cheese. After I’d cleaned up the kitchen, I fidgeted around the house, tried a library book, slammed it shut, and at last resorted to turning on the television.
I’d forgotten to check the time. I’d turned the TV on during the news. The pictures were among the worst: women holding screaming children, bombs exploding, bodies in the street in the limp grip of death. I saw the face of one desperate woman whose family was buried in rubble, and before my finger could punch the channel changer, tears were running down my face.
I haven’t been able to watch the news in years.
Chapter Four
Wednesday mornings are flexible. It’s the time I set aside for emergencies (special cleanings for ladies who are going to host the bridge club or give a baby shower) or rare cleanings, like helping a woman turn out her attic. This Wednesday, I had long been scheduled to help Alvah York with her spring cleaning. Alvah observes this rite even though she and her husband, T. L., live in one of Pardon Albee’s apartments now that T. L. has retired from the post office.
Two years before, I’d helped Alvah spring-clean a three-bedroom house, and Alvah had started work before I arrived and kept on going at noon when I left. But Alvah has gone downhill sharply since the move, and she might actually need help for the two-bedroom apartment this year.
The Yorks’ apartment is on the ground floor of the Garden Apartments, next to Marie Hofstettler’s, and its front door is opposite the door of the apartment Pardon Albee kept for himself. I couldn’t help glancing at it as I knocked. There was crime-scene tape across the door. I’d never seen any in real life; it was exactly like it was on television. Who was supposed to want to get into Pardon’s apartment? Who would have had a key but Pardon? I supposed he had relatives in town that I didn’t know of; everyone in Shakespeare is related in some way to at least a handful of the other inhabitants, with very few exceptions.
For that matter, how had he died? There’d been blood on his head, but I hadn’t investigated further. The examination had been too disgusting and frightening alone in the park.
I glanced at my man-sized wristwatch. Eight on the dot; one of the primary virtues Alvah admires is punctuality.
Alvah looked dreadful when she answered the door.
“Are you all right?” I asked involuntarily.
Alvah’s gray hair was matted, obviously uncombed and uncurled, and her slacks and shirt were a haphazard match.
“Yes, I’m all right,” she said heavily. “Come on in. T. L. and I were just finishing breakfast.”
Normally, the Yorks are up at 5:30 and have finished breakfast, dressed, and are taking a walk by 8:30.
“When did you get home?” I asked. I wasn’t in the habit of asking question, but I wanted to get some response from Alvah. Usually, after one of their trips out of town, Alvah can’t wait to brag about her grandchildren and her daughter, and even from time to time that unimportant person, the father of those grandchildren and husband of that daughter, but today Alvah was just dragging into the living room ahead of me, in silence.
T. L., seated at their little dinette set, was more like his usual bluff self. T. L. is one of those people whose conversation is of 75 percent platitudes.
