A Show of Hands Page 2

  “I still say she drowned,” said Olaf. “Must’ve.”

  “You think so?” Crisp replied.

  “Well, you find someone dead and they got a four-inch hole in their head, and they’re holdin’ a thirty ought six, it’s a fair bet to say they died of a gunshot,” said Olaf.

  Everyone but Crisp and Stuffy nodded and made agreeing noises. Stuffy generally withheld agreement on principle. Crisp took a long pull of Moxie and winced. Moxie was good for that. “Makes you less likely to look elsewhere for the cause, I’ll say that much,” Crisp commented. He stood up, paid Brenda for the drink, and riffled briefly through his pockets, until he remembered that he’d lost what he was looking for, so he quit. “Well, good day, gentlemen.”

  The cowbell rang in reverse when anyone went out, which it did now as Crisp left. Everyone watched him through the grimy, rippled windows as he stepped out into the cold, tucked his scarf into his collar, pulled his hat down around his ears, and charged off across the street. “Wouldn’t take long to count the beans in his jar,” said Olaf.

  “Don’t think so, do ya?” said Stuffy, dealing out the cards for four. Four immediately took their places.

  “Don’t take much sense to figure he ain’t got any,” said Olaf.

  “Cut for the crib,” said Stuffy, drawing an ace. “High card.” No one else cut higher than a jack, so Stuffy dropped a five into the crib. “Shows what you know.”

  Olaf scoffed. “I s’pose you know all about it?”

  “Ain’t sayin’,” said Stuffy. “But I know he worked for the NSA for ’bout half a century, is all.”

  “What’s that?” said Wendell. “Gov’ment?”

  “I know he was in gov’ment,” said Harry. “Everybody knows that. Argues pretty strong in Olaf’s favor, you ask me. Anybody who’s been in gov’ment for fifty years is all set for the happy jacket.”

  Stuffy played thirty for a go. He lit a filterless cigarette and worked it into a damp groove in his lower lip. “National Security Agency is what NSA means,” he said in a cloud of smoke, dampened appreciably by ss and cs. “That’s just above the CIA. Seventeen for two. You heard of the CIA, ain’t you, Olaf?”

  “Crisp worked for the CIA?” said Wendell, impressed. He’d imagined the professor more in the spokesman-who-asked-to-

  remain-anonymous type of work.

  “The NSA,” Stuffy corrected. “That’s more secret. Most folks don’t know nothin’ about it.”

  “What’d he do?” said Olaf in a face-saving maneuver. “Shred paper?”

  “He ain’t pretty enough for that,” Bill observed.

  Stuffy used his eyebrows to drag Olaf into focus. “Chief code breaker,” he said.

  The brief silence that followed was heavy with awe. All but Stuffy’s eyes turned again to the window. The professor was struggling up the Net Factory Hill, holding his hat, his head, or both against the bitter northwest wind.

  “Code breaker,” Wendell whispered.

  “Twenty-eight for six,” said Stuffy, playing a seven. “Chief code breaker,” he amended.

  When Winston Crisp first moved to the island, he’d planned to have the old family cottage winterized and live there year-round. But it was too lonely, even in summer when most of the other cottages along the shore were full. That surprised him. He’d never been lonely before. All those years in the belly of the beast, bent over a microscope, squinting at a computer screen, straining to hear telltale clicks through symphonies of hisses, doodling endlessly in pencil on every available surface, traveling to places no one had ever heard of. He’d never been lonely before. He always had his riddles.

  Loneliness lost all pretense when the neighbors left after Labor Day, so he decided to close up the house for the winter and find a place in town.

  He’d known Matty Gilchrist most of his life, and they’d always got on pretty well, so he moved into her rooming house. Seemed the natural thing to do. It was a cozy place, with ruffles, porcelain figu-rines on lace doilies, and gilt-framed portraits of people nobody knew. Little shelves for dishes and pictures of family. Nothing in common with his old digs on Connecticut Avenue in Washington—design by neglect, shades of dried-mustard brown and musty gray, where woman never trod except Miss Flyguard from the Bureau. She’d been there a couple of times, but she was one of those women who’d been neutered by feminism. Alarmingly nice ankles, though.

  “Ah, there you are, Winston,” said Matty as Crisp came in the front door. Matty always left the kitchen door open so she could see who was coming and going. Of course during the winter it was only Crisp or, on Wednesdays, the telephone men over from the mainland. Still, knowing who it was didn’t stop her from checking to make sure. “Any mail?”

  Crisp took off his hat, untied his scarf, and carefully draped them on the bentwood stand behind the door. He shuffled through the mail as he headed down the hall toward the kitchen. “Water bill,” he said, “something about saving . . . blackflies? Well, I didn’t know we had a shortage of blackflies, did you, Matt? I’d always assumed there was a surplus. Seems everything needs saving these . . . Here’s something from your sister.” He handed her the letter. “And The Island News. That’s about it.”

  Matty wiped her hands on her apron. “Nothin’ about . . . ?” she said hesitantly.

  “No,” Crisp replied. “No. Not today.”

  “Well, then,” said Matty. “No news is good news. There’s always tomorrow.”

  Crisp turned his kindly eyes on her and smiled a distant smile. “Always tomorrow, my dear,” he said, and squeezed her shoulder.

  Matty was the only person in the world who knew about Winston’s poetry. It had been their secret for years, and she’d suffered with him through rejection after rejection—form letters most of the time. But once in a while someone had taken the time to jot a note in the margin: “too sentimental,” “maudlin,” “out-of-date,” “what century are you from?” That type of thing.

  Matty liked the poems. They rhymed. She thought they were honest and heartfelt. But the world that valued those things was gone, she knew that. She saw the void every night on TV.

  “You sit down there and get comfy,” she said with a nod toward one of the old cane-bottomed chairs that lined the table. “I’ll put some water on for tea. Just let me get them scones out’ve the oven and put this potpie in—it’s for the church supper—and we’ll talk about it.” She limped slightly as she went about her business. She’d broken her knee in a fall on the ice three winters ago. It often bothered her when the weather changed.

  Winston pulled out the chair and sat down. “They’ve had this poem a long time,” he said softly. “Usually they don’t keep it this long. I mean, they usually let you know.” As his voice fell in on itself, he fixed his eyes on Matty and followed her back and forth from one end of the counter to the other.

  He tried to remember when they’d first met. He often made a game of it, not that it brought him any closer to remembering, but sifting through the memories always turned up one in particular. It was of Matty at about fifteen or sixteen, tumbling over the moors out on James’ Island, like a paper doll cut out of the blue sky, her thick, long yellow hair troubled into tangles and edged in gold where the sun tried to peek through. Just the faintest outline of her lithe, young body was visible through the thin blue summer dress. There were lots of little white flowers in the pattern, too. They fell into valleys, danced over the folds, and swept gracefully up to gentle peaks in the most beguiling way.

  Matty had aged easily. During the war she was a radio operator with the Coastal Watch. Always practicing her Morse code, ever vigilant. Ever ready for an invasion that never came. Pauline Revere.

  The first summer Crisp returned to the island after the war, Matty had taken on a fair amount of what she called “cuddle flesh” and thereafter grew cuddlier and cuddlier as time went on. Never married, she became everyone’s favorite aunt. Though she had pretty much overwhelmed the youthful promise of womanhood in almost every respect,
she was no less pleasant to behold at the pres-ent stage of her life. The overflow was soft and homey and always smelled of something fresh from the oven. Everything about her said “welcome.”

  Matty lay the crust on the pie as gently as a mother putting a child to bed and crimped the crust with practiced fingers. It was a ballet, perfectly choreographed to the music of her constant chatter. Winston didn’t suppose he’d ever write a poem like Matty.

  His gaze fell to the table, and he sat quietly for a moment while Matty cleaned up. After a while he was so lost in thought he didn’t notice her staring at him.

  “Somethin’ on your mind?” She poured the tea and put a cup on the table in front of him.

  The sound of her voice called him from far away, and he stuttered and stammered a little, as might be expected of any visitor from another dimension. “Huh? Oh, I . . . well, Matty . . . I was just thinking about . . .”

  “The girl?”

  He nodded.

  “Poor thing,” said Matty. She had pulled out a chair but didn’t sit down; she just wedged it under an ample cheek of her bottom and suspended herself against it, tempting gravity. Through the steam of her tea she regarded her star boarder. When he looked up, she looked down into the cup.

  “Poor thing,” he echoed.

  “Terrible way to die, isn’t it? Drowned.”

  “Oh, I don’t think she drowned,” said Winston. “I don’t think that’s very likely.”

  “What do you mean? They found her up at the quarry, didn’t they? Luther told Milly Thompson they found her frozen in ice up there, like I told you this mornin’.”

  “I know,” said Winston. “They were talking about it down at the poolroom. Leeman Russell was telling them how they chipped her out of the ice.” Matty turned away. “Sorry, Matty,” he said. “But Leeman was there, you see. Now, what makes it odd is that the girl went missing just after Labor Day and now she turns up frozen, ‘fresh as a mornin’ in Paris’ I think is what Leeman said. Like she was asleep.”

  Matty lowered herself into the chair. “What do you mean ‘went missing’? Who went missing?”

  “The girl.”

  “What girl? That one?” She pointed toward the mortuary.

  “Yes, from Senator McKenniston’s house.”

  Matty stood up. “You mean that’s the girl young McKenniston was paradin’ all over town last summer, the redhead?”

  “Seems so.”

  Matty took her incredulous expression out of mothballs and tried it on. “But she ran away.”

  “In September,” said Crisp.

  “Then how’d she turn up froze in the quarry?”

  Crisp used his eyebrows to flip the question back to her.

  “My word,” said Matty. She would have said more, but her eyes had drifted toward the window at the very moment something of interest was happening across the common. “My word,” she said. This was clearly an independent remark, to which the previous exclamation was only distantly related. “Looks like they’re finished already.”

  Crisp turned toward the window, pushed the glasses up on his nose, and brought the world into focus. Four men were leaving the mortuary. Luther Kingsbury, the policeman, was easy to tell under his patrolman’s-issue blue fur hat with the upturned flaps and a big gold-colored badge. So was Dr. Pagitt, who always walked as if he was leaning on the wind in a force nine gale. Immediately behind them was the only stranger in the trio, undoubtedly Gammidge from the mainland. Last, and most recognizable, was Charles Young, the undertaker. Chuck walked like an inverted pendulum because one leg was a lot shorter than the other.

  Matty looked at her watch. “Too late to make the boat.”

  “What?” said Crisp, cupping his ear. “What’d you say, Matty?”

  “That fellow from the mainland—he was goin’ to try to make the last boat. Too late now,” she said. “He’ll be stayin’ here tonight, I expect.” Her supposition was punctuated by the sound of the boat whistle blowing in the distance. The ferry would return after dark, but the island was effectively severed from the mainland for the long winter’s night. Natives slept better in the knowledge. “Better get supper started. Beef stew all right with you, Winston?”

  “Fine,” Winston replied. He got up from the table and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “I hate simmerin’ stew for less than four hours,” she fretted.

  “I know you do, my dear,” Crisp said. “I’m going up to my room to write for a while.”

  “You do that,” said Matty. “I’ll bring you up some scones later on.” No one was surprised that Crisp had gained nearly twenty pounds since he moved in with Matty. They would have been surprised if he hadn’t. But he was still thin as Salome’s veils.

  Poetry wouldn’t come this afternoon. Every time Crisp closed his eyes to concentrate, all he could see was the dead girl in ice. Of course, his imagination was somewhat handicapped, never having seen her himself. No doubt this accounted for the fact that, in his mind’s eye, she looked uncommonly like Olaf Ingraham. This made the vision no less disturbing.

  The front hall door opened and Luther Kingsbury’s voice searched the premises without a warrant. “Matty! You t’home? Matty!”

  For a moment the only reply was the loud ticktock of the grandmother clock over the umbrella stand. Momentarily, though, that worthy lady’s footsteps could be heard in the hall. Crisp went to the top of the landing. “Evening, Luther,” he said.

  “Hi, Professor.” Luther turned to the stranger who accompanied him. “Nate, this here’s—” But it was too late to make an introduction as Matty entered under full sail.

  “There you are, Luther.” As usual she was wiping something wonderful off her hands. “I’ve been expectin’ you.”

  “I told you,” Luther said to the stranger. “News travels fast out here.”

  “News got nothin’ to do with it,” Matty interceded on her own behalf. “I saw you come out of the mortuary same time as the boat whistle blew. And since I’m the only place open year-round, I put a few extra carrots in the stew. Stew okay with you?” she asked, holding out her hand.

  The stranger shook her hand. “Nate Gammidge, ma’am.”

  “Matty Gilchrist,” she said. “Everybody calls me Matty.”

  “Matty,” Nate Gammidge said with a tilt of the head. “Stew’s fine with me. Sorry to put you out at the last moment like this.”

  Matty took his coat, hat, scarf, and gloves and hung them on the stand with all the creases pointed in the same direction. “Only time innkeepers get put out is when they ain’t put out. Come on in and have some coffee, or would you rather have tea? Winston generally likes tea this time of day.”

  Crisp had waited halfway up the stairs for Matty’s initial wave of hospitality to subside. She was one of those people who’d practically force her services on you—press your shorts and darn your socks somewhere between “hello” and “walk this way.” She needed room to maneuver.

  Crisp descended the rest of the way. “She’s not referring to the family pet, Mr. Gammidge,” said Crisp. “At least not in so many words.” He held out his hand. “I’m Winston Crisp.”

  “Call me Nate,” said Gammidge, shaking Crisp’s hand warmly and looking him in the eye. Crisp noted what a rare thing that was. “Winston Crisp?” he said thoughtfully.

  “Sounds a bit like an after-dinner mint, I’m afraid,” said Crisp apologetically.

  Gammidge’s mind was recalled from elsewhere. “What? Oh . . .” He laughed politely. “No . . . well . . . I was just wondering if I’ve heard that name before.”

  “Not likely.”

  “Seems I have, though. Not a name you’re likely to forget.”

  “Nor a person you’re likely to remember,” Crisp replied with a smile.

  “You stayin’ for coffee, Luther?” said Matty.

  Luther, who lived in mortal dread of his wife, gathered his wits toward supper, excused himself, and—having informed Matty that “the town will take care of it,”
meaning the bill—left.

  Matty deposited her boarders in the parlor and bounced off to the kitchen to tend dinner.

  Winston let Gammidge have his choice of chairs. Gammidge sat in Winston’s favorite, by the fireplace. Winston sat opposite him and loaded his pipe. “Do you mind?”

  Gammidge shook his head. He looked around the room. “Cozy place you got here,” he said.

  “Oh, it’s . . . it’s Matty’s,” Crisp replied. “I’m just . . . I board here, is all.”

  Gammidge nodded. “Cozy.” He took a magazine from the stand, opened it, and stared at the fire over the top of the pages.

  “Your first time on the island?” Crisp asked.

  “No. Well, in an official capacity, you could say . . . but I come out here once a year or so, with my wife. She has family out here. Usually we stay down at the Tidewater.”

  “Oh,” said Winston. “That’s closed for the winter. Repairs of some kind, I gather.”

  Gammidge nodded and his eyes reverted to the fire. Crisp let the silence turn the screws (it had the effect with most Americans, he’d observed) and finally force him to speak. “Nasty business.”

  “Really?” said Crisp. “Oh, you mean the . . . my, yes. Awful business. Awful.”

  “Nasty,” Gammidge reiterated, but he failed to attach the anticipated explanation.

  Crisp was not prepared to let the topic lapse. “Terrible,” he said. “To die like that.”

  Gammidge looked at him sharply and seemed about to say something. Instead, he just smiled. “Mmm.”

  “They say she drowned.”

  “That’s what they say,” Gammidge replied.

  “She didn’t, though, did she?”

  Gammidge studied his companion a little more closely. “You don’t think so?”

  “I would say it was murder.”

  For some reason Gammidge took hasty inventory of the doorways with his eyes. “Murder?”

  “Strangled or poisoned, most likely. Am I right?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Just a hunch,” Crisp replied softly. “No water in her lungs, was there?”