15

By two-o’clock a tired Brady had taken six calls variously praising and condemning features in the issue, which had been on the streets now for two hours. Kelly, with a wink, had left him to Mrs. Rickenbacker, whispering that there were a few leads she meant to pursue on her own.

Though he had slept until nine, Brady was still logy and his thought processes were dulled. He was, for instance, beginning to have second thoughts about his treatment of the minister, Sims. The man could cause a lot of trouble; in fact, already had. Brady doubted he had the stomach for murder, but he could stir people up. Well, it was done now. Maybe he had forfeited all chance of putting the Express back onto a viable footing. One thing was certain: the lead story wasn’t going to accomplish the job. Oh, it was all right as far as it went. He and Kelly had cobbled together the basic facts of the two murders, but it was a far cry from the kind of dynamite investigative job he was accustomed to turning in.

Of course, he reminded himself, it was different in the city. There, if you couldn’t find enough for a story, you carefully buried the piece, went on to something else, and no one was the wiser. Here, in a town of six thousand, there were only so many noteworthy events, and when one happened, there was no way to shove it under the rug. And, while in the city you could cultivate a network of sources, here in Troy everybody knew what was happening.

The telephone rang again, but this time, instead of swearing, Brady reached for it with quiet resignation, realizing that it would be this way as long as he owned the Express.

“Yes?” he asked wearily.

“Mr. Brady?” The voice on the other end was male, rich and deep with an edge of a black accent. “My name is Turner Ward. I was talking to a mutual friend yesterday and he said you might need my help.”

Brady’s flagging senses went on alert. “Reverend Ward? Yes. Thank you for calling. I didn’t know Mr. Goynes had contacted you.”

“He was concerned, Mr. Brady. Very concerned. He’s a good man, a decent man, Mr. Brady, and there are some of us here that hate what happened with him. We’d hate to see something like that happen again.”

“So would I,” Brady said. “But it looks like somebody’s got a pretty fair start.” He hesitated, then decided to take a chance, and told the minister about their investigation so far. As an afterthought, he mentioned the grave of the Unknown Friend.

“So you see, Reverend, if it relates to anything that happened a long time ago, most of the people who could tell us anything are dead, and even any evidence burned up in the courthouse fire. But Reverend Goynes thought maybe that, if I could talk to the lady who worked for Mrs. MacBride, we might be able to find out something that would help.”

The man on the other end sighed. “I do wish that was possible, Mr. Brady. I do so much wish that. But the problem is, as I told the Reverend Goynes when he called, that the lady who worked for Mrs. MacBride had left her several days before the unfortunate event. And now she doesn’t want to say anything. You have to understand. She sees this as business that doesn’t concern her; something that can only get her into trouble. It’s unfortunate, but that’s just the way things are in Troy.”

Brady felt his hopes sink. “Of course. I understand. But we know different, don’t we, Reverend? It does concern us all, or else you wouldn’t have called.”

There was a quiet chuckle on the other end of the phone. “Well, of course, you’re right, Mr. Brady. But the problem is I’ve already talked to the lady, and if I can’t get this lady to say anything, with all due respect, I’m not sure you can.”

“I’d like to try.”

“Certainly. There’s no harm in trying. Do you know where I live, Mr. Brady? If you’ll come to my home at eight o’clock, the lady will be there. You can ask her whatever you want. And I pray that you’ll be successful.”

Brady took down the address, thanked the minister, and disconnected.

Later that afternoon he went to Annabelle MacBride’s funeral. It was a sad little affair that left him depressed. More people turned out than for Frieda’s funeral, perhaps because of the younger age of the dead woman, and perhaps because of the notoriety involved. When the services were over, they made the long ride to the cemetery at Indian Creek. As the funeral director confided to Brady before the services, there was still a space available in the family plot, and Annabelle had expressed no wishes beforehand, so it seemed the reasonable thing to do.

There was a reporter on hand from the Alexandria Town Talk, and Brady had the feeling that the Reverend Sims, who conducted the service, would have his picture in the paper tomorrow. He also had the feeling that Sims would not be averse to the publicity.

“Pretty good sermon,” the familiar voice of Garitty said from behind Brady, as the gathering broke up.

Brady turned. “Yeah. Worthy of an uptown preacher. Why didn’t you tell me he was the one who saw me with Annabelle?”

The sheriff arched a brow. “Mr. Brady, you protect your informants, don’t you?”

“Did he tell you he was outside my house last night and I put the fear of God into him, and I don’t mean the uptown God, either?”

The sheriff smiled. “Be careful, Mr. Brady. Assault is a crime.”

Kelly breezed in just before five, refusing to divulge where she had been. “Professional secret,” she said, ascertaining that he was alone and then pecking him on the lips. “Besides, I can’t stand funerals.”

“I’d feel better if I could know you were safe,” Brady declared.

She put her fists on her hips. “Peter Brady, I’ve had to put up with my father’s misguided protectionism all my life. If I have to start putting up with that sort of thing from you, well, I want to know before we make any long-term commitments.” “Were we getting ready to make a long-term commitment?” Brady asked.

“Well, I …” She looked down, flustered. “I was speaking theoretically, of course.”

“Of course,” he said.

“Anyway, I didn’t hear any applause.”

“No,” he admitted, thinking of the bottle on the shelf and the prospects for saving the paper, which didn’t look so bright at this point. She’d be crazy to want a permanent relationship with him, and he’d be crazy to let her entertain the delusion.

“Damn it,” she cried, “are you feeling sorry for yourself again?”

“No, just for you,” he said resignedly. “Look, you want to solve a murder or not?” He told her about the meeting with Turner Ward and saw the eagerness rekindle in her eyes. “Of course, I don’t think we’ll find anything out,” he said, “but what have we got to lose?”

They had dinner at her place, which by now had been converted into a charming, but sparsely furnished combination of living area and bedroom. She had hung a few framed front pages on the wall, and she explained that they were issues of which she’d been particularly proud. There was one with a story about the problems of the aged in south Boston, another with a story on cruelty to animals, but nothing, he noted, on murder.

“So,” she said suddenly, wiping her mouth and getting up from the cushions beside the coffee table. “Where do we stand?”

Brady’s guts did a little jump.

“About the case, damn it?” She asked, folding her arms. “Are we any closer than we were before?”

“I thought we were working along independent lines,” Brady said.

“Well, that doesn’t mean we can’t pool what we know. If I find out anything from what I’ve been doing, I’ll tell you.”

“Fair enough,” he said, getting to his feet. “But in answer to your question, I don’t know where we stand. All I feel secure about is that Frieda hid the truth about her relationship to Annabelle. But why anybody would kill Frieda because of a secret that would hurt only her is something I don’t know. I tend to think she was killed because of those pieces of paper that Annabelle scattered over Frieda’s grave. They represent some kind of document, a confession, a letter, I’m not sure what, but something Frieda was using against somebody else. Annabelle inherited it and somebody killed her for the same reason. It all fits in with what we know about Frieda. She was used to getting her way, by fair means or foul. She’d use the rumor mill to get rid of a minister she didn’t like. She’d use overt blackmail to get rid of somebody else.”

“So far, so good,” Kelly said. “But what relationship does that have to the grave of the Unknown Friend?”

“Maybe somebody left a confession to the crime.”

“I’ve thought about that. But surely that tells us something about the killer.”

“You mean, like he or she is over sixty years old?”

“Ummhmmm. My father’s generation.”

Brady nodded uneasily. “Right.”

“What about the body in the grave, then?”

Brady rubbed his jaw with a finger. “I don’t know.”

Kelly’s eyes sparkled. “Then try this: who was the one person who might have been an embarrassment to Frieda and her family?”

“You mean her husband, Mike MacBride,” Brady said. “Yes, I’ve thought about that.”

“He was paid off, the way I figure it, but he came back, wanted some more money so …”

“But there’s a problem with that,” Brady pointed out. “If Frieda was a party to the murder, then how could she hold it over anybody else?”

“Maybe she wasn’t a party,” Kelly suggested. “Maybe her father got somebody else to do it, she found out about it, and …”

“Who could it have been, then?” he asked.

“I don’t know that—yet. But let me ask you one more thing,” she said. “What happened to Frederick Love Cantrell’s money?”

Brady blinked at the non sequitur. “His money? Did he have any money?”

“Royalties,” Kelly said smugly. “Lots of people bought his books. He spent a lot of money while he was alive, but not all of it. And he wasn’t married.”

Brady’s ears pricked up. “It sounds like you’re onto something. So how much are we talking about and what happened to it?”

“Ah. His will was handled by a lawyer named Soames, now no longer with us, but it established an endowment for the perpetual care of Cantrell’s manuscripts and memorabilia. At present, with interest added over the years, the sum comes to a tidy eight hundred and twenty-three thousand dollars.”

“Nice little nest egg,” Brady said.

“Right. Now for the MacBride connection: a couple of years ago, somebody got the idea of building a more fitting memorial to Cantrell. They chose some property on the edge of town, on a little hill overlooking the highway, where everybody coming up from Alec would pass by. Logical, right?”

Brady nodded. “I’d say so.”

“Who do you think the property belonged to?”

“I think you’re about to tell me.”

She smiled. “How about the late, unlamented Frieda Troy MacBride?”

Brady set his ginger ale down on the table. “They wanted to buy her land?”

“That’s right.”

“What happened?”

“The assessed value was something like thirty-five thousand for two-tenths of an acre.”

“They could have afforded that.”

“Right. If Frieda had been willing to accept it. But as soon as they showed any interest, she started making noise about having plans for some kind of a development. Now, nobody had ever heard of this development, and it seemed pretty transparent that she was just trying to jack them around on the price.”

“How much did they want?” Brady asked.

“Get this: she wanted a hundred thousand, even, and claimed she was making a sacrifice. Naturally, it angered everybody involved; especially the members of the trust committee, and they put it on the back burner. They decided to look into other opportunities, but it seems like there was no place that really fit the bill like the piece of land Frieda owned.”

“So you’re saying nothing ever happened.”

“Nope.”

“This committee,” he asked. “Who is it?”

“Three members: the mayor, ex-officio; Rowena Forbes; and Dick Whiteside, at the University.”

“I imagine the idea of the new facility belonged to Rowena, though.”

“Bingo. How did you ever guess? She worships Cantrell, you know. I get the impression she doesn’t really feel like he ever died. It’s a very strange fixation.”

Brady nodded. “I gather. Tell me, where did you come by all this information?”

“From Dick Whiteside,” she said airily. “He’s writing a book about Cantrell. He’s had to research a lot of it. I checked out what he told me in the courthouse, and it all stands up.”

“He’s very obliging.”

“Oh, he likes me. He is pretty lively, you know.” She gave a litte laugh. “I get the impression he’s spent more time over the years having fun than he has writing monographs. That’s why it’s so important for him to finish this study and get it published. He’s forty years old and still an assistant professor, without tenure.”

“It sounds like the two of you hit it off,” Brady said, a note of irritation creeping into his voice.

“Well, we had lunch, if that’s what you mean. And he did invite me for dinner tomorrow night.”

“Did you accept?”

“Of course I accepted.” She folded her arms. “Do I detect a note of jealousy?”

“I don’t know. What all does dinner involve?”

“How should I know?” she replied lightly. “I haven’t been yet.” She checked her watch. “About time to go, isn’t it?”

The Reverend Turner Ward lived across the tracks in the Quarters, a section of clapboard houses and shacks with narrow streets and ditches beside the road. His house was a single-story red brick, set off by a well-kept lawn and a cyclone fence, a step up from the other houses in the neighborhood. They had just parked and were getting out, when the front door opened and a man started down the walk toward them, hand outstretched. He was stocky, about sixty years old, with skin almost the color of his dark suit. A red silk tie and handkerchief burned on his chest like tongues of flame and a gold watch chain spread across an ample paunch.

“Mr. Brady, welcome. I’m Turner Ward.”

“Reverend. This is Miss Maguire. She works with me. I hope you don’t mind my bringing her.”

“Mind? It’s a pleasure.” He escorted them up the walk to the front door, holding it open for them. “This is my home and you’re both very welcome here.”

Brady glimpsed a room with modern furnishings, TV, and stereo, and a big stand in one corner with a Bible atop it. But what took his attention was the woman in the center of the room. In her early thirties, she was tall and thin, with a little hat perched on her head like an afterthought. She fidgeted in a wooden chair, her eyes going from Brady to the girl and back in what could only be interpreted as hostility. An older woman appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, with a tray and cups.

“Mr. Brady, Miss Maguire, this is Mrs. Ward. She has prepared some coffee for you. Please, sit down.”

He indicated the couch, and Brady took a seat, reflecting, as he sank into the cushions, that the woman before them was not being offered anything to drink, and that her unpadded chair contrasted sharply with the comfortable sofa on which they now sat.

Brady took one of the cups, added some milk and sugar, and waited for Ward to make the next move.

But the minister seemed not to be in any hurry. “Miss Maguire, you’ll forgive me, but you seem familiar. Have we met before?”

“Yes, we have. My father was the publisher of the Express before Mr. Brady bought it.”

“Of course.” Turner Ward leaned forward in his recliner chair and put his cup on the coffee table. “And how is your father? Well, I hope?”

“He’s fine. Or, he was the last time we talked.”

“Well, that’s good. I’m pleased to know it. And you, Mr. Brady? How do you like it here in Troy? Do you find it very different?”

“Yes, I do,” Brady said, realizing that, for some reason of his own, Ward chose to ignore the woman across from them.

“A small town is different from a big city,” Turner Ward observed. “We have our own ways.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“Sometimes they may seem strange. But that’s only to people unfamiliar with them. If you stay here, you’ll learn.”

“Is there doubt that I’ll stay?” Brady asked.

The minister chuckled, his paunch moving like jelly. “Well, Mr. Brady, life is full of doubts, now isn’t it?”

He turned to the woman in the chair. “Mr. Brady and Miss Maguire, I’d like for you to meet Agnes Brown. Agnes worked for Miss Frieda MacBride until a few months ago, wasn’t it Agnes?” The woman gave a barely perceptible little nod. “I have asked her to answer any of the questions you may choose to put to her. I have explained that terrible crimes have been committed, and that it is her duty to assist in any way possible, and that if you discover the guilty person, you will notify the police.”

Brady nodded. He looked directly at the woman in the chair.

“I have also explained,” the minister said smoothly, “that you are not going to pay her for anything she may say. It should not be necessary for a person to receive pay when something is their civic duty, but that there may come a time when you can do her, or someone connected to her, a favor, in which case I know that you would be happy to do that.”

“Fair enough,” Brady agreed. “Let me also state that, as a member of the press, I consider this a privileged conversation. I will not reveal her as the source of anything that might be said here without her permission. Do you understand that, Miss Brown?”

The woman’s eyelids dipped slightly and she shot a look at the preacher. “I understand,” she mumbled.

“Miss Brown, let me also say we very much appreciate your taking the time to come here. I’ll try to make this as brief as possible.” The woman looked as if she doubted it, but there was nothing for Brady to do but keep going.

“During the time you worked for Mrs. MacBride, there must have been things you saw that nobody else would have seen.”

The woman did not answer; just stared back through half-lidded eyes.

“During that time, did you ever see Miss Frieda with a document—a piece of paper, or maybe several pieces of paper, handwritten, in blue ink—pieces of paper that maybe she kept in a special place, safe, or hidden, or locked up? I’m talking about something she would have considered important. Maybe she would have left something like that lying out once or twice and you might have seen it.”

The woman’s expression did not waver. “I don’t know about nothing like that.”

“Miss Brown, we think it could be the clue to these crimes. Please think back carefully. It may have been kept in a locked place. Did Miss Frieda have a safe in her house?”

“I don’t know about no safe.”

The sense of failure was beginning to steal over him now like an infection. “Well, what about Miss Annabelle. Did she ever argue with her mother? They may have mentioned something like that. Did you ever hear them argue?”

“I just worked there. I don’t know nothing about no arguments. They live there and I done the washing and cleaning, that’s all.”

Now he knew it was a waste, that they were not going to get anything from her. Frustrated, he tried one final question.

“What about people coming to the house? Do you remember any of the visitors who came there?”

“I just worked Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I don’t know who come.”

“You never saw anybody?” Brady asked, his voice incredulous.

“Sure. I seen people. Deliveries.”

“Nobody but delivery people? No one ever came to visit Annabelle, for instance?”

“No.”

“What about Annabelle. Did you talk to her much? You were about her age, weren’t you?”

The woman gave a hoarse little laugh. “I talk to Miss Annabelle, sure. She say, ‘Get that room, pick up here, vacuum.’”

“And nothing else?”

“No.”

“Well, what did she do most of the day. She didn’t have a job to go to.”

“I don’t know. Read. Stay up in her room. Smoke cigarettes.”

“Cigarettes?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you ever go into her room to clean?”

“No. She don’t let me in her room, so I stay out. That’s okay. I got enough with the rest of the house.”

“I’m sure.” He took a deep breath. “Miss Brown, do you mind telling us why you quit?”

The woman fidgeted. “I … I needed a rest.”

“Do you work now?

She nodded.

“Who do you work for?”

“Miss Jordan, over on Tulip Street.”

Brady got up slowly. “Miss Brown, I appreciate your time. Reverend Ward …”

The minister rose and put a hand on Brady’s arm. “Is there anything else, Mr. Brady?” he asked blandly.

“No, thank you.” They went outside, and the preacher walked them to the gate and waved as they left.

“She was lying,” Kelly said.

“No doubt about it,” Brady agreed. “But I can’t say that I blame her. What has she got to gain by stirring things up? Still, I’m not sure why Turner Ward called me to begin with.”

Kelly smiled. “Turner’s a devious man. He had his reasons, I feel sure about that.”

“I’m sure he did.” They stopped in front of her apartment. “Your place or mine?” he asked, still stung by her lighthearted willingness to see Whiteside.

“Oh, mine, I think. And early bed tonight,” she declared, stretching over to peck him on the lips. And before he could protest, she was out of the car and on her way up the steps.

He returned to his house, overcome by moroseness. What was she doing, trying to make him jealous. Or was it something more? Whiteside, damn it. Maybe Whiteside was not as innocent as he seemed. Maybe he had his own motives, was stringing her along.… Brady swore at himself. So Dick Whiteside appreciated a pretty face as much as Pete Brady. Was that a sin? He didn’t own Kelly, for Christsake. Hadn’t he just refused to make any long-term commitment to her? So what right had he to expect her to stick to him like glue?

Couldn’t she see, though? There was the age difference and his drinking problem, and God only knew if he would be able to stay in Troy for many more days without going completely crazy.

He fought off the urge for a nightcap and went to bed, feeling the emptiness on the sheets beside him, and wishing, for once, that his phone would ring.

He awoke at five-thirty and stumbled into the kitchen. He poured himself a glassful of milk and returned to the bedroom, to stare down at the phone. He reached out for it, then stopped. What was he going to do? Tell her he couldn’t sleep? Tell her he needed her? Offer her the commitment? Wasn’t he just exchanging one crutch for another?

He drank the milk, showered, and dressed. Then he took out his copy of Cantrell’s book and opened it to a random page.

The writer had camped on a mountain and at daybreak had realized the time had come to move on.

I knew that I must leave this place, because there was more of the world to see, more faces, more lives, even more tears, and yes, more hope.

It had an echo of Thoreau, but it was not Thoreau. It was sui generis. Or, at least, that was what the critics had said. It had inspired a generation. But it could not provide the kind of inspiration Brady needed now, so he shut the book and put it away. After all, it was one thing to sing a hymn to the masses, another to solve three murders.

He walked down to his office at seven-thirty and opened it, hardly noticing the figure leaning against the lamppost beside the parking area. He was just trying to force himself to begin the day when he heard the door open and shut behind him and turned to see a man standing in front of him. The man could have been sixty or he could have been seventy-five. A stained felt hat shaded a pair of beady eyes, and gray stubble fuzzed the man’s jaw. A pair of gray suspenders held up black flannel trousers, from one pocket of which protruded a dirty handkerchief.

“You’re the editor of this here newspaper?” the old man demanded and hawked noisily.

Brady nodded, his instinct for trouble on the alert. The man was small, barely to Brady’s shoulders, but he looked wiry and fit for his years.

“That’s right,” Brady said. “Why?”

“Because I got a story for you. If you want it.”

“What is it?” Brady asked.

The man hawked again, looked around for a spittoon, then took out his handkerchief and expectorated into it. He regarded the results for a moment, then refolded the cloth and put it back into his pocket.

“I could’ve went to the Town Talk. Or the Shreveport Times.”

“But you didn’t,” Brady said. “If you’re looking for money, though, maybe you’d better. They’re richer than I am.”

“Don’t need their damn money,” the little man snarled. “Got my own. I just need you to help me get it.”

“Oh?” Brady folded his arms. “And how am I supposed to do that?”

“I give you my story. You’re press; you ain’t one of these hacks at the courthouse. I heard about you. You got some kind of prize for reporting, didn’t you? Well, I want somebody these bastards downtown can’t touch. Then, when you print my story, they’ll have to give me my money.”

“Maybe,” Brady said noncommitally. “That is, if you have a story, Mr.…”

“MacBride,” the old man said. “Michael Lee MacBride. And I come here for my wife’s money.”