A Show of Hands Read online

  Six days had passed in a sort of physical blitzkrieg, bombardments of pain followed by long, dreamy stretches of listless stupefaction under the spell of whatever drug they were administering him. Matty was sitting at his bedside, knitting. It seemed she’d been there constantly. Whenever his leaking ship hove close enough to make out a little shoreline through the fog, she was there. Knitting. Talking. Lightly brushing his hand now and then. He couldn’t see her clearly—just this round, animated figure that was all soft and buttery about the edges.

  “Well, I finally got a chance to talk to Marky,” she continued. Crisp didn’t know whether she knew he was awake. Maybe she just had a little program of bedside conversation, and when she reached the end, it just looped back to the beginning and repeated the same thing all over again. “He said he was all ready to go home . . . I gather he was workin’ under a boat or something . . . anyways, he likes to listen to his radio pretty loud, I guess. You know what kind of music they listen to today. I guess “Mairzy Doats” sounded like Armageddon to our folks, don’t you? Anyways, he shut his radio off when he was ready to go home and noticed the generator was on. He says they keep their own generator up there because of the way the power was, you know? I don’t blame ’em, either. You never know when it’s goin’ to go down . . . and with a freezer load of meat. Well, that one they got’s just for the freezer, as far’s I can make out from what he said.

  “Anyways, he noticed it was on and it wasn’t s’posed to be, so he run up to the house to shut it off. That’s when he found you. Of course, you know that. Boy, I bet you was never so glad to see a fellow human being in your life, was you? Even if it was Marky Williams.”

  What about Mostly? Where was he?

  “Now half the town’s waitin’ to find out how you come to lock yourself in that freezer,” Matty continued. “Not to mention how you happened to turn the thing on ’forehand.”

  His lips felt like dried fruit. It seemed he should say something, but he decided against it. He closed his eyes and pretended he was asleep. Just one finger and two toes. He was entering the hereafter in bits and pieces. In less than two minutes he wasn’t pretending.

  The next time he awoke, the process was so gradual there was no clear definition of when sleep ended and waking began. Someone was poking him, lifting his eyelids and tapping him in places. How long the procedure had been going on, he had no way of knowing. He hoped the person was a doctor.

  “How are we feeling today, Professor?” It was a woman’s voice. The use of the royal “we” betrayed her as a nurse.

  “We wish we were dead,” said Crisp. His voice didn’t sound strange or strained or even particularly grave. Surprising.

  “Ah! You found your tongue after all!” said the nurse. She put some things in a white plastic bag, tucked him in, and fluffed him up with hands far too mechanical to minister comfort to any degree. “We had bets whether you’d pull through,” she continued cheerfully. “You just cost me five dollars.”

  “I apologize,” he said. “Believe me, if I’d had my way—”

  “Now, now, don’t you talk like that, Winston.” It was Matty. “You’re goin’ to be just fine.” She patted his hand. He took hers and squeezed it. Reflexively she tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her.

  “Matty,” he said softly. He dragged his eyes into focus. He thought she’d look a spectacle, having been at his bedside for who knew how long, knitting and talking. She looked the way she always looked—a self-contained hurricane of domesticity. “I was going to say you should go get some rest, but you look fine.”

  The nurse filled her quota of poking and fluffing and went away.

  “Well, they don’t have a word for what you look like,” she rejoined, “and if they did you’d never hear it in Sunday school. But at least you’re alive. And,” she added in consolation, “you don’t sound too bad. Now maybe you can tell me how you got in that freezer.”

  “I was locked in,” said Crisp. He tried to open his eyes a little wider in emphasis, but the process admitted too much daylight to his brain, so he closed them again.

  “I know that,” said Matty patiently. “But how did you manage it is what everyone wants to know.”

  “I didn’t lock myself in, Matty.”

  “Don’t be silly, of course you did. Marky Williams said the door was locked when he got there, and—”

  “That’s true,” said Crisp. “But somebody else locked it. Not me.”

  Her needles stopped clicking. “What do you mean, somebody else? You’re bein’ silly now. You mean somebody didn’t know you was in there?”

  “Oh, they knew, all right.”

  “Then that proves it, doesn’t it? Nobody would lock you in if they knew you was in there.” Matty’s logic, if it could be called that, was ineluctable. “That’s too dangerous.” The needles resumed.

  “Where’s Mostly Sanborn, Matty?”

  The needles stopped again. “Why, it’s funny you should ask that, of all things,” she said. “He’s gone, Winston. Gone!” She either snapped her fingers or clicked her needles in emphasis. “Nobody’s seen him for days . . . well, since you got locked in that freezer, come to think of it. That very day Mostly turned up gone.” She continued knitting. “His mother’s frantic, I shouldn’t wonder. Poor thing.”

  Crisp had the feeling her sorrows had only begun.

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Eight days.”

  “We’re in Rockland?”

  Matty made the affirmative noise that was invariably accompanied by three or four nods of the head.

  “And you’ve been here the whole time?”

  “Well, you know how long it’s been since I had a regular vacation, on the mainland and everything.”

  “This isn’t much of a vacation.”

  “Oh, I think it is,” said Matty. “I’m stayin’ over at The Ledges. Now, how’s that for fancy! You know,” she added confidentially, “they don’t have teapots and fixin’s in the rooms.” She sighed the sigh that was always followed by, what is the world comin’ to? “What is the world comin’ to? I’m sure I don’t know. Sixty-five dollars a night, and no tea in the rooms!”

  “You ring for room service, Matty.”

  “Room service! I’d rather conjure up the dead with a Ouija board. That oily little man in the funny hat comes wheelin’ everything in on a tray as if he couldn’t carry it just as easy in one hand . . . makes a big production out of it. Just for tea! And then he holds his hand out. You know what that means. Not in this life. No sir. And the tea’s cold, on top of everything. I saw it all in a Bob Hope movie.

  “All I require is more teakettles in sixty-five-dollar-a-night hotel rooms and less pointy-headed little foreign people with their hands out, thank you.”

  The knitting needles kept time during the ensuing silence.

  “How d’you feel, Winston?”

  He hadn’t thought about it. That signaled an improvement. “All right, I guess, Matty.”

  “All things considered?”

  He nodded. “All things considered.”

  “Mmm.” Matty made some half-humming, half-about-to-say-something sounds. “That policeman was here.”

  “Mr. Hanson?”

  “He has a dissipated frontal lobe.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Phrenology. You know, how the shape of people’s heads makes ’em geniuses or mass murderers.”

  Crisp nodded. “I’ve heard of it. Back about the turn of the century it was quite popular.”

  “Well, see? We should learn from the mistakes of the past, shouldn’t we?” Matty said thoughtfully. “I wonder what a phrenologist would say about that man’s frontal lobe.”

  “You don’t suppose Mr. Hanson is a mass murderer, do you?” said Crisp with a smile. At least he was working his smiling muscles. He couldn’t feel whether the signal had made it to his face.

  “Well, he’s no genius,” Matty concluded, as if dubious about there being a middle
ground between the options. “He said he’d be back about two.”

  About two, Hanson showed up.

  “Good, you’re awake.”

  Mass murderers, in Crisp’s experience, seldom exhibited such punctuality. Matty would have been impressed had she not left his bedside fifteen minutes earlier to attend to “some lady things.”

  “Hello, Mr. Hanson.”

  “How’s the . . . ?” He massaged the fingers of his left hand with those of his right.

  Crisp held up his hand. It was hidden in a mitten of bandages. There was no pain. For all he could tell, all his fingers were pres-ent and accounted for. “Oh, well. All right, I guess,” he said. “I don’t . . . it doesn’t hurt or anything. Strange.”

  “Strange—that’s the word of the week.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, first you end up in a freezer, and . . . how did that happen, anyway?”

  “Somebody locked me in,” Crisp said immediately and with emphasis in order to dispel any contrary notions.

  “I know that,” said Hanson. “It would’ve been a little difficult for you to slip a bolt lock from inside the freezer. Why do you think I’ve had guards stationed out in the hall the last week?”

  “Well, that’s a relief. I hadn’t even thought of it before, but now that you mention it, I heard the bolt in the lock. To hear Matty tell it, half the town thinks I tried to commit suicide.”

  “If you ever get to that point, let me know. I can suggest a thousand easier ways.” Hanson smiled. “Did you see who did it?”

  Crisp shook his head. “That’s the craziest part of this whole business—”

  “You haven’t heard the craziest part yet,” Hanson interrupted.

  “Pardon?”

  “Never mind. You finish your story first. Then I’ll tell you mine.”

  “Well, I was just checking out a theory. Mostly had let me into the house. He showed me where the freezer was, opened it, and just stood there by the door while I poked around. He was rattling on about this and that, like he always does. I turned to hand him this little stepladder I’d been using . . .” He paused for a minute, trying to picture the sequence of events clearly in his mind. “You know, he hadn’t said anything for a few seconds before that. I was too caught up in what I was doing to notice at the time, but . . . Hmm.”

  “That was unusual, I take it.”

  Crisp nodded. “Very,” he said. “Anyway, I held out the step-ladder for him to take, but he didn’t. I looked up, and the door was closing. I was on my knees, so there was no way I could—”

  “So you think this Mostly character did it?”

  “I did in that first instant, but, no. I don’t think so,” said Crisp.

  “He’s disappeared, you know.”

  “I know. That’s what worries me.”

  “How so?”

  “I think Amanda Murphy’s murderer was in the house.”

  “And that’s who locked you in the freezer?”

  “And Mostly stood between him and that objective.”

  “So . . . you think he’s dead?”

  Crisp didn’t say anything. Somehow it seemed that if he agreed, even if he nodded, it would make it so. He lowered his eyes and rested his chin on his chest.

  “What did you find out? Anything?” said Hanson.

  Crisp became slightly more animated. “Amanda was murdered in September. Makeup from Mrs. McKenniston’s theatrical trunk, which is kept in the barn, was painted on her neck and face.”

  “Old makeup.”

  “Very old.” He patted the pockets of his pajamas. “I had the jars—”

  “We found them. I’ve already sent samples off to Augusta.”

  “Mmm. Well, then she was put in the freezer.”

  “Until the hard freeze.”

  Crisp nodded. “Until the hard freeze, when she was dumped into Lawson’s quarry.”

  “Wouldn’t someone have noticed the generator running?”

  Crisp hadn’t thought of that, but it didn’t present a big problem. “I doubt there’s anyone up there that time of year. Why would there be? Everything’s been closed up for the winter. It’s not ’til spring that Mostly and Marky Williams go up there, to start getting things ready for the family.”

  “But you left out the fingerprints,” Hanson protested. “How did they get there?”

  A chill ran down Crisp’s spine. “I’m not going to say until Andy Calderwood’s body is exhumed again.”

  Hanson’s first instinct was to bridle, but it was suppressed by his second instinct. “Why?”

  “Because something doesn’t fit.”

  Hanson laughed. It was meaningless and involuntary, so he changed it to a sniff. “All right. I’ll order it. When?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “But you’re not well enough to travel. The doctor says you’re going to be in bed another ten days, at least.”

  “And there’s nowhere I’d rather be,” said Crisp. “Fortunately, I don’t have to be there. It’ll take you about five seconds to find out what I need to know.”

  Hanson shuddered visibly. “I hate this business.”

  “Oh, and this time I suggest you get one of your own people to do the digging. Perhaps you could just quietly slip over toward evening—”

  “No more helicopters, huh?” Hanson said, cringing. He shook his head, collected his weary frame, and rose to leave. “Tell me something—why the makeup?”

  “If I told you what I suspect . . . Let’s wait until after we have another look at Andy Calderwood.”

  “Well, you’ve sure given me an earful. I guess the least I can do is return the favor.”

  Crisp waited.

  “The fingerprints on those buttons? They’re Neddy McKenniston’s.”

  It was something to think about.

  Somebody wanted Crisp dead. That was something else to think about. It had been a while since anyone had tried to kill him. It was hard not to consider the attempt a compliment, of sorts. At least he hadn’t ceased to be effective.

  Of course, the only suspect that came readily to mind was Amanda Murphy’s murderer, or murderers, the type of person or persons who would not be favorably impressed by his resilience. Perhaps they would try to remedy the situation. Although he was glad there was a guard outside the door, he couldn’t help but wonder how easy it would be to dupe a small-town cop, more accustomed to directing traffic at school crossings than dealing with diabolical murderers, into leaving his post for a minute or two. That’s all it would take.

  One or two minutes at the mercy of this particular murderer would be far too long. Something had to be done.

  “Mr. Crisp?”

  The voice belonged to a wholesome-looking young lady in a red-and-white-striped hat who had opened the door slightly and was peeking around it. “Oh, good. You’re awake.”

  She pushed the door open the rest of the way and dragged a meal cart into the room after her. She was dressed in a pink uniform, and her thick dark brown hair was pulled into a ponytail, tied with a scarlet and gold ribbon.

  “They say you’re ready for some solid food,” she said. In a single, efficient motion she propped up his pillow, swung his bedside meal tray into position, and transferred to it from the cart a stainless-steel covered dish and a glass of milk. At some point in the proceeding she leaned close enough to him so he could make out her nametag. “Sarah.” She removed the cover on the dish, revealing a small, angular, quaking pile of green Jell-O. No less did Crisp quake, inwardly, at the thought of eating it. “Well,” she said, apologetically, “almost solid.” She took a spoon from the cart, wiped it on her apron front, and, flinging down the gauntlet, placed it beside the bowl.

  “There was a different nurse in here this morning,” he said, picking up the spoon. He gazed at Sarah. She was really a very attractive girl. Large busted and healthy but not overweight. Probably Norwegian stock.

  “Linda Dickins,” said Sarah. “She gets off at ten.”
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br />   “Sarah?”

  “Sarah Quinn.”

  Crisp’s ears stood at attention. “Sarah Quinn . . . from the island?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ve heard of you.”

  “Well,” said Sarah with a warm smile, “don’t you believe half of it, good or bad.” Her laugh, though covering only a small segment of the scale musically, was ready and pleasant. Whatever Sarah Quinn his imagination had compiled from the little he’d heard of her came crashing down like a despot’s statue.

  “I didn’t know you worked here,” said Crisp conversationally. He’d wanted to talk to this girl, but he was so taken aback by the disparity between the Sarah Quinn he’d heard described and the Sarah Quinn in his room that he’d forgotten what he’d wanted to learn from her.

  “I got here the day after you did,” said Sarah. “They were advertising in the paper for help. I had to call and remind them they’d had my application for ages.”

  “You’ve moved over here, then, to the mainland?”

  “Oh, no,” Sarah said quickly. “No, I’ve got to take care of . . . I have a baby, you know.”

  Had the baby a father? Crisp wondered.

  “And Daddy needs me, too. You know how it is. No, I come over on the first boat and return on the last. That gets me back in time to pick up J. T.—my baby—at my sister’s and get home to make supper for Daddy before he gets there. I still put in an eight-hour day if I don’t take time off for lunch.”

  “Sounds like long hours,” said Crisp, still trying to form a question.

  She smiled. “Mmm. Well, you do what you have to, you know?”

  “I thought you worked up at McKenniston’s.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. Her bustle of activity quickened, just like Matty’s did when she was flustered or embarrassed. “I’m not going to do that this year. They’ll just have to get along without me, for a change.”

  “You’ve . . . worked up there a long time.”

  “If you don’t eat that Jell-O, I may lose my job,” she said. The momentary flush had left her face like a summer cloud leaves the sun. She was composed and professional. “It was time for a change, I guess. I’ve always wanted to work in a hospital.”