A Show of Hands Page 10

  Hanson’s objection mechanism sputtered to life. “She was strangled by bare hand!” he protested, holding his own hands up in example. “There were fingerprints—”

  “The fingerprints of a dead man,” Crisp reminded him emotionlessly.

  “Someone got their facts confused,” said Hanson. “That’s all. We’ll find there was just a mistake. Fingerprints don’t lie, Mr. Crisp. This is just a case of human error.”

  “She was strangled with this first,” Crisp continued. “Then it was made to look as though she had been strangled by hand.”

  “The professor said that’s why she had those cuts on the sides of her neck . . . the wire, you see.” Gammidge pretended to strangle himself with a wire.

  “Something wound around her neck after her body was thrown in the quarry,” Hanson snapped. “I told you that, Gammidge. Fishing wire or a vine. Besides, who in his right mind would strangle someone with a wire, then his hands?” He looked at his watch. “Where did you get these things?”

  “In a hole in a tree.”

  “Near the beach where the girl was killed,” Gammidge interjected.

  “Near the beach where the girl was killed,” Crisp repeated.

  “The beach? What beach?”

  “The beach up at McKenniston’s, remember?” said Gammidge. “I told you. The professor found that beach sand under her toenails.”

  “Yes, yes. I remember,” said Hanson impatiently. He unwound the kerchief Crisp had tied around the wooden handles. “Handles?”

  Crisp nodded.

  Hanson thought for a while, then smiled condescendingly. “Okay. Let’s look at your ideas objectively, Mr. Crisp,” he said. “The girl is wearing this?” He held up the bikini bottom. Crisp nodded once. “Nothing else?”

  “The sweatshirt. There were bloodstains on it. I imagine she was wearing it when she was attacked. Either that or it was lying nearby, and the murderer put it on the body.”

  “All right,” said Hanson. “All right. She’s got suntan lotion on. And the makeup?”

  “Just the suntan oil.”

  “Why do you say that?” Hanson was holding the bikini bottom up to the window.

  “The makeup was applied later, over the oil.”

  “Okay,” said Hanson, dropping the fabric onto the table. “Okay. When did she put on the makeup?”

  “She didn’t,” said Crisp patiently. “Her murderer did that.”

  “The murderer put makeup on her?” He cocked his left eyebrow incredulously and cast a sidelong glance at Gammidge.

  Crisp nodded.

  “After he . . . ?” Hanson finished the sentence in mime.

  “After,” said Crisp. “She was strangled with that first.” He nodded at the wire. “Then the makeup was put on.”

  “Forty-year-old makeup,” Gammidge volunteered. He much preferred life at the edge of the loop. From a safe distance he could toss comments into the wheels of reason and watch what happened.

  Hanson became the personification of long-suffering, rubbing his temples. “Then he strangles her again, with his hands, drags her up to the quarry six miles away, and dumps her in. Oh, but first he has to chip a hole in the ice, doesn’t he? I mean, it’s December, right? Do you suppose the beach was crowded in December, Mr. Crisp? More sunbathers than you can shake a stick at?”

  “It was September,” Crisp said quietly. “Just after Labor Day.”

  Hanson went to the entry to get his coat from the rack. “And that’s where your whole theory begins to fall apart, you see?” He pulled on his coat, then came back into the parlor and sat down opposite Crisp. “Listen, Mr. Crisp, I appreciate all the thought you’ve given this case. I do, really. But this whole sunbathing idea—you see how ridiculous it is, don’t you? I mean, think about it. It had to be December. At least. That’s when the ponds first froze. We checked. Almost Christmas. There was no bathing suit connected with this crime. Couldn’t be. That’s just . . . I don’t know. Some kid stuck it in the tree, hiding it from a skinny-dipper. Who knows? I’ll tell you this: she was strangled and tossed in the quarry.” He picked up his suitcase. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not the one who’s crazy around here.

  “Now, anyone who didn’t catch a ride on the helicopter this morning will be waiting for us down at the motel, Gammidge. Let’s get moving.”

  “But the fingerprints . . .” Gammidge objected.

  “They got mixed up at the lab,” said Hanson surreptitiously. “We’ll sort it out. All you need to do is apply common sense. Granted, this may seem like a sensational case on the surface, but it’ll all boil down to simple common sense.” He tapped his temple. “Common sense will answer all the questions in the end. Are you coming, Gammidge?”

  “All right,” said Crisp, a little feebly. “I guess I just let my imagination get the best of me. Perhaps you’re right, Mr. Hanson, about life on an island. You have to be disposed to it, you know?”

  “Of course you do,” said Hanson with a smile. “Of course you do. Granted, there are some difficulties, but don’t you worry, Mr. Crisp. The answers will fall into place, all in good time. We’ll get to the bottom of this. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.” He shook Crisp’s hand. He was surprised at the old man’s grip, and uneasy beneath his gaze. “Now, Nate, get your coat on or we’ll miss that boat. You settled with the lady?”

  Gammidge nodded. “I’ll take care of it,” he said slowly, and left to do so.

  The day was knee-deep in blue. Clear. Cool. A pussy willow just outside the window had pushed out a few green shoots, determined to be the first one into summer. Hanson’s words echoed in the stillness of the room. Crisp didn’t add to them. He didn’t have to. They were hollow. Unsatisfying. Hanson sat down again. For the first time since he got to the island, he pushed himself all the way back in his chair. “They’re going to be all over me about this,” he said, half to himself, half to the angels.

  “Bosses?” Crisp ventured.

  “Bosses? They’re the least of my worries.” Hanson leaned forward and poured himself a cup of coffee. Crisp decided there might be a person in there after all. “The press. The politicians.” He looked at Crisp. “What on God’s green earth prompted you to look in that tree?” His voice was almost pleading. “I mean, why did you go up to the McKenniston’s in the first place?”

  “The beach sand.”

  “You found beach sand under her toenails, so you went up to the McKenniston’s and looked in a tree?”

  “Well,” Crisp replied softly, “in a manner of speaking, yes. One thing leads to another. Sequential logic.”

  “I can’t wait to hear the sequential logic that had you poking around in old trees on the evidence of beach sand.” Hanson settled back a little farther in the easy chair, prepared for a long story.

  Crisp sat down, too. “I had made certain assumptions beforehand, I confess,” he said. “The first being that this crime has many layers. The evidence is being manipulated.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’d been strangled twice. Why, when the first effort clearly did the job?”

  Hanson folded his hands under his nose and rubbed the back of his knuckles thoughtfully against his teeth. He stared at the table full of evidence. Especially the length of rusty wire and its crude handles. “To cover up the first one?”

  Crisp smiled. “Right. The first time was very neat. Very clean. There are no fingerprints in the suntan oil beneath the makeup, other than the victim’s. This indicates that she applied it herself.”

  “In December,” Hanson reminded him.

  “For the moment, let’s assume that’s a separate problem.”

  “And in the makeup?”

  Crisp shook his head. “No fingerprints. None at all. Then a wire was used to—”

  “I understand,” said Hanson.

  “And there are no fingerprints on the handles. I’ve studied them.”

  “Gloves?”

  “Rubber, probably,” said Crisp. “The wood
is very rough—just stumps of branches, as you see—but there are no traces of fabric, as you might expect if the murderer wore cotton or wool gloves. And why did the murderer put this knotted rag in the middle of the wire?” Pause. “To crush the windpipe and the larynx, while leaving as little of the wire mark as possible. Then there’s the problem of the buttons.”

  “Buttons?”

  Crisp reached into his shirt pocket and drew out a snapshot, which he dropped to the table.

  “That’s the missing picture!” said Hanson, stepping to the coffee table. He picked it up and looked at it. “You were in my room!”

  “You wouldn’t have let me see the picture, would you?” said Crisp.

  “Of course not! It’s evidence—”

  “Look at the buttons,” said Crisp, handing Hanson a magnifying glass.

  “They’re plain brass buttons,” said Hanson. “What of it?”

  “Look at the buttons on the sleeves.”

  Hanson did so. The corpse’s hands were folded neatly in front of the body, so the buttons were presented for easy inspection. “Chain and anchor,” he said softly.

  Crisp nodded, took the picture from Hanson’s limp fingers, and slipped it back into his pocket. “I wonder why.”

  “Them investigators was stayin’ up to Matty’s last night, wasn’t they, Pr’fessor?” Petey Lamont picked up the peppermint wrapper that Crisp had tossed at the spittoon and ran it under his prodigious nose. He’d have preferred butterscotch, especially this hour of the morning. Of course he knew perfectly well who had stayed at Matty’s the night before, as well as their weight, hair color, shoe size, and ancestral heritage. Just like everyone else in town. Not that the information in circulation was necessarily accurate, but reliability was of secondary consequence. Volume was critical.

  No one knew Alfred Hanson firsthand, but there were a lot of Hansons on the mainland with whom various islanders had communicated through the ages, and their composite became the template used to create a portrait of this particular Hanson. The apple principle applied: if you wanted to know an apple, study the tree. Infor-mation gleaned in this manner sufficed to the satisfaction of most and, as Crisp had learned over the years, although not notoriously accurate in particulars, was probably not too wide of the mark in general.

  Crisp nodded and stuffed the peppermint into his right cheek with his tongue. “Mr. Gammidge and Mr.—”

  “Hanson,” said Drew. The last piece of wood he’d put in the stove was too big, and the little cast-iron door wouldn’t close all the way. Now and then smoke would puff out in wisps and billows and drift up to join the blue-gray cloud that floated just below the tin ceiling.

  “Hanson,” said Crisp.

  “There’s lots of Gammidges over on East Haven,” said Drew.

  There were nods of agreement.

  “I don’t ’member any bein’ out here, ever,” Petey said. “D’you, Stump?”

  “Never was,” said Stump, reviewing the lengthy parade of islanders that passed before his brain. “ ’Cept one who used to go out seinin’ with Mo Osgood. But he was from East Haven. Jus’ come over durin’ season’s all.”

  There was another lapse during which the fire editorialized in pops and crackles. “What’d they have to say about it?” said Pharty.

  At this point the two layers of conversation, the audible and the inaudible, merged. The customary formalities having been observed, this question was launched to bridge the two. “They” were the investigators. “It” was the opening of Andy Calderwood’s casket.

  “Well, I guess they just wanted to make sure he was in there,” said Crisp.

  The wood had finally burned enough so Drew could shove it the rest of the way into the stove and close the door. “ ’Cause of them fingerprints,” he speculated.

  “I can’t figure that out at all,” said Petey. “Can you? I mean, Andy Calderwood was already dead before that girl come to no good. They seen ’er over to Rockland a coupla days after them boys was killed. Who was it said they seen ’er over to Rockland, Drew? I know Mostly did.”

  “Becky Gable.”

  “That’s right,” Petey continued. “Becky Gable seen ’er over there after them boys was killed.”

  “And Evelyn Swears,” Pharty amended.

  “Yessir,” said Petey. “Evelyn did. And Mostly. That’s at least three seen ’er over there. Well, then, if all them people seen ’er after them boys was killed, how did Andy’s fingerprints get on her neck when he was already gone more’n two, three days?”

  The eyes of each man had found a favorite place among the pots, pans, hardware, and old photographs and settled there, but all ears were turned to Crisp. “I believe they’re just as confused,” he said softly.

  “What’d they expect to find?”

  “Well, I get the feeling they didn’t really know what to think. They had some evidence that didn’t seem to add up. As you said, Petey, how could the Calderwood boy’s fingerprints appear on the girl’s body if he died before she did? I guess, unless you believe in ghosts, you have to think that either people were mistaken when they said they saw the girl on the mainland after the boy died, or the boy didn’t really die.”

  “But it was an open casket wake, f’r pity sakes,” Petey objected. “Lots’ve people was up there. Saw both them boys.”

  “Charlie did a good job,” said Stump.

  “That leaves us with the alternative,” Crisp suggested. “It’s interesting that nobody saw her come back to the island.”

  Petey wondered if it was. “She musta got back out here someways.”

  “Maybe just nobody noticed, is all. Lot’ve people on the boat that time’ve year . . . ’bout Labor Day,” Pharty observed.

  “True,” said Crisp. “But—”

  “I don’t know,” said Drew. “She was one’ve those people who attract attention. I’ve seen lots of ’em over the years. Isadora Duncans, I call ’em. Not that they mean to, but they do.”

  “There’s a lot that do go out of their way for it,” Stump said, and for a few minutes the conversation spiraled off to diatribes against the times.

  Crisp, with a remark interspersed here and there, gently returned the speakers to the topic. “But the Isadora Duncan types are different?” he said.

  “Oh, yes,” said Drew. “Night and day.” He tilted his head and lobbed an addendum over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses. “Not that they mind the attention, you understand.”

  Crisp forgot what he was going to say, then he remembered. “She was a very pretty girl.” Even cold and dead she was pretty.

  “She was,” said Drew. Others nodded. “Some pretty.”

  “Well, I know times have changed since we were boys, but, as I recall, a pretty girl wouldn’t go unnoticed on the ferry,” commented Crisp.

  “You got that right,” said Pharty. “Even if it was crowded as the ark.”

  “Especially if it was crowded as the ark,” Crisp corrected. “The bigger the crowd, the more boys. The more boys—”

  “More eyes to notice,” said Drew.

  Everyone nodded.

  “ ’Specially the way she dressed.”

  “Distinctive, would you say?” Crisp asked.

  “That’s just the word I was lookin’ for,” said Drew. “Distinctive is right. She always wore these real tight outfits.”

  “Body stockin’s, Almy said they was,” said Petey. “That’s what they call ’em. Dancers wear ’em.”

  Drew approved. “Well, that’s a good name for ’em. I seen lots of women wear ’em . . . most shoulda been shot for it. But she could do it.”

  “Wasn’t flauntin’ neither, though,” said Pharty.

  “No, that’s the thing,” Drew agreed. “Somehow she could wear them costumes and get away with it. Like she didn’t give it a thought, you know? I guess that’s where personality makes a difference.”

  “That’s all she wore?” said Crisp, draping inquisitive wrinkles over his eyebrows. “Just these dancing cost
umes?”

  “Oh, no,” said Drew and Petey.

  “Skirts,” said Petey.

  “Big, colorful skirts, like gypsies wear,” added Drew.

  Pharty launched a cheek full of tobacco at the spittoon. “Real feminine,” he said.

  “Flowers and things,” said Drew. “Then she always had these big ol’ scarfs—”

  “Bandannas,” Petey corrected.

  “. . . in her hair,” finished Drew.

  “Bright red hair,” said Pharty.

  “Bright red hair,” repeated Drew.

  “That’s how come they noticed her on the mainland,” Pharty concluded.

  Crisp thought of the bright red wig pinned to the bright red hair of the corpse in the morgue. Nonsense oiled the gears of suspicion. “Doesn’t sound like a girl who’d escape notice on the boat,” he speculated. One by one, the others nodded in agreement. “But as far as we know, nobody saw her, going or coming.”

  The statement was directed at Petey, but Pharty answered. “Must’ve. Like you said, you don’t miss somebody like that.”

  “That’s what I mean,” said Crisp. “If somebody saw her on the boat, they didn’t come forward when the FBI was investigating the girl’s disappearance last year. Curious, isn’t it?” said Crisp. “So many people on the boat that time of year, but the only three people who saw her were in Rockland.”

  Evelyn Swears lived at the end of Clamshell Alley, a narrow lane at the water’s edge that followed the contour of the harbor. The water side was occupied by lobster shacks in various stages of repair and disrepair. Most of the lobstermen had been out on the water for hours by this time; their trucks were wedged at odd angles in openings here and there. One or two of the shacks showed signs of life, though. Lethargic wraiths of smoke moored themselves to tin chimneys and, congregating at an altitude of twenty feet or so, refused to go any farther.

  The residential side of the lane was lined with a series of neat white cottages, built on granite ledge, three stories in front and two in back, so their second stories admitted an enviable view of the harbor over the roofs of the lobster shacks.

  Jeannie MacQueston’s crocuses, little kings of spring, were already up and aggressively trying to out-purple one another among the remaining islands of snow and ice in a sea of matted wheat-colored grass. The air, although not warm, whispered promises of summer in Crisp’s good ear, and as he walked his stride became somewhat less purposeful. Once again he hadn’t slept well. He was tired. He would have liked to lie down among the crocuses and let spring grow up around him. This year it would grow up around the Calderwood boys and Amanda Murphy. His turn would come in time—perhaps next year, or the year after. A welcome prospect. He wondered if he’d get any closer to the fire in the meantime.