Chapter Three

(1)

The attic was a disappointment to Rima. It wasn’t a romantic attic with rocking horses, birdcages, and bridal veils. It wasn’t a spooky attic with taxidermy, dress dummies, and bridal veils. Mostly it was filled with boxes, some of which contained Addison’s published books and had never even been opened. There were first editions, foreign editions, large print, book club, hardcover, trade paper, and mass market.
Light sifted in through two screened vents, just enough for Rima to make out the general terrain. Addison had brought a flashlight. She flicked it on, and gave it to Tilda, who began to move through the stacks, tipping the top boxes to the side so she could read the labels of those beneath. Dust rose and spun in the beam of light. The dogs were quieter now, snuffling in an efficient, disciplined fashion. They wormed their way under a heap of old dining room chairs, making them rock briefly.
As Rima’s eyes adjusted, she found more to interest her. She almost stepped on a lamp with a sphinx for a base. It had no shade, no bulb, and no place to plug into. The sphinx’s nose was chipped, and Rima couldn’t decide whether it was supposed to be that way, eroded and faux ancient, or whether someone more recent had broken it. What Rima didn’t know was that the lamp was actually a trophy for a literary award called the Riddle Prize. As such, it had a complicated iconography involving the sphinx and a light going on. Addison had won any number of awards over the years, including this one in 1979 for Average Mean. She preferred trophies that could be eaten, but there weren’t so many of those.
A couple of posters were draped over one of the tallest stacks of boxes. The one on top was of Harrison Ford, rugged in a blue work shirt, a book by his knee. Rima couldn’t see well enough to determine its title. She tried to guess what Harrison Ford might read, but really had no idea. In any case, he wasn’t reading it. She slid him aside to look at the poster underneath. This turned out to be Addison, the mobile of murder weapons dangling over her head with a balloon crayoned around them like a thought in a comic strip. She was reading Gaudy Night, which Rima knew only because she’d seen this poster before. It announced the American Library Association’s Celebrity READ series and had hung in Rima’s college library during her freshman year. Eventually it was replaced by Antonio Banderas holding Don Quixote, and it was hard not to see this as an improvement, even if Addison was your godmother, at least when it suited your purposes to say so.
Most arresting by far was a row of plastic Santas, each about four feet tall, and strangely numerous. Rima counted eight of them, all lined up against one wall as if they were about to be shot.
The dogs had given up the mouse hunt. Rima thought they were playing together until it became clear something less palatable was going on. Addison leaned over to brush the top one (Berkeley) aside and pick the bottom one (Stanford) up. “They’re brother and sister,” she told Rima. “Fixed, of course. No consequences. Beyond the sheer horror of it.”
Stanford shuffled in Addison’s arms until his muzzle was on her shoulder. He stared morosely at Rima from under the fringe of Addison’s hair. “Do you think he’s gaining weight again?” Addison asked Tilda.
“Last time we were in, Dr. Sanchez said he was down a pound,” Tilda said. “Celebrations all around.”
“Dachshunds love to eat,” Addison told Rima. “Never happier than when you’re feeding them. But their backs can’t handle the weight. We have to be cold and cruel.” Rima remembered the breakfast of eggs and toast she’d witnessed. Some of us were colder and crueler than others.
Tilda moved along the front of the attic. The stacks were higher here, so Rima joined her, taking the flashlight and letting Tilda wrestle the bigger boxes with both hands. Rima could smell the morning hike on her. Not sweat so much as trees and dirt and underneath all that an almond-scented soap.
Tilda read the labels aloud as Rima illuminated them. “ ‘Reviews and Interviews, 1982-85.’ ‘Maps and Floor Plans.’ ‘1962 Gubernatorial Race.’ ‘False Starts.’ ‘Correspondence slash Letters to the Editor’?”
“Mine, not Maxwell’s,” Addison said. “Unless otherwise specified.”
The dust was beginning to get to Rima. She sneezed and the ball of light jumped. “Bless you,” said Addison.
The attic was beginning to get to Rima. The boxes seemed to her sad remnants of things much larger, a book, a cause, a life. Santa Claus. Here is what we can keep, Rima thought. Here is all that remains. And what did it accomplish, this hanging on to leftovers? If you make a lamp shaped like a sphinx, is the real sphinx made larger or smaller by that? If a bird takes a shoe, is it more than a shoe or less?
“ ‘Palo Alto,’ ” said Tilda. “ ‘Interviews, 1990-92.’ ‘Photos slash Ventura.’ ‘Receipts, 1974-84.’ Christmas cards . . . Datebook 1989.”
She realigned the boxes and moved to the next stack. The box on the top here was small—a shoe box with one crushed corner, the lid bound on with twine. When Rima shone the light on the label, she saw the single word “Bim.”
Tilda did not read this aloud. She took the flashlight back from Rima, since the stacks had narrowed and now there wasn’t room for them both. It was possible the label meant nothing to Tilda. Rima couldn’t see her face, just the black, unblinking eyes of the snake tattoo.
The label was probably about the character Bim and not her father anyway. Or maybe she’d misread it. It could have been Bin. Or Ben. BIM. Bank of Inner Mongolia. Bureau of Interstellar Management.
“I had a phone call from Martin.” Tilda’s head was down. She straightened and turned to Rima, dust and dog hair swimming in the flashlight beam between them. “My son,” she said. “Not that I was much of a mother, his dad raised him. Did a great job, he’s a great kid. Well. Not really a kid anymore. Twenty-six.”
Oliver would have been twenty-six if he’d lived. Rima felt an instant dislike for Martin, who got to be twenty-six years old and probably didn’t even appreciate it. It was such an unfair feeling that having it made her sneeze again. “Bless you,” Addison said, which Rima didn’t deserve; it only added to the guilt.
“He’s coming over Friday after work. Okay if I give him a bedroom? I hate him to be on the Seventeen after dark.”
“Martin’s always welcome.” Addison glanced at Rima.
Here is what the glance meant: Don’t worry. No way will Martin stay the night. Here’s what Rima thought it meant: I know I said you’d have the whole floor to yourself, and now I’m sorry I said so.
“ ‘Letters slash Maxwell’?” Tilda asked.
“Bingo,” Addison said.
The box was large enough that Tilda needed two hands to pick it up. She handed the flashlight to Addison. The light bounced about the attic, hitting the sphinx lamp, the dining room chairs, Rima’s shoes. It swept the Santas, brushed over the shoe box with the crushed corner, turned a dachshund’s (Berkeley’s) eyes to mirrors.
“You’ll like Martin,” Tilda told Rima, and from the darkness behind Tilda’s shoulder, Addison gave Rima another look, hard and right at her.
This look meant: Martin’s a conniving little snot. Here’s what Rima thought it meant: I know I said you’d have the whole floor to yourself, and now I’m sorry I said so.

(2)

There were more letters in the box than Rima would have expected, and they were jumbled together, some in envelopes, some not, some typewritten, some by hand, and none in any order that Rima could discern. She wondered if Maxwell had answered any of them; she wished she’d thought to ask. Though honestly, she wasn’t as interested in the letters as Addison had assumed; it had simply seemed rude to say so. She would rather have brought down the box with her father’s name on it.
Since her father’s death, she’d lacked the concentration for books. The letters were short and undemanding, and just enough like reading to substitute for reading. She read a few that night before she went to sleep.
The first was on three-ringed binder paper, in a faded blue ink. There was no envelope.
1410 King St.
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
July 7, 1981
 
Dear Maxwell,
I think you would like me if you knew me, we have a lot in common. We were both raised by our fathers and we both had lonely childhoods. A lonely childhood is hard to get over, isn’t it? When I was a little kid all I wanted was to grow up as fast as I could and go somewhere else and now all I want is to go back, have a “do-over” in a different place with a different family. You can get past a bad childhood, is what I think now, you can have a “good life,” but you’ll never stop wanting a good childhood and you can’t have one later, there’s no way.
You and me, we’re both real quiet. My wife is always after me to talk more. She says, cat got your tongue and penny for your thoughts, until I tell her, baby, you don’t even want to know.
I don’t solve mysteries, but I’ve done okay for myself. I own a gas station and bait shop that I got all on my own, nobody helped me with that, and now I’m saving for a boat. I get to live all year round in a place lots of people come for vacation. It’s all about saving your money and having a plan. Anyway, I just wanted you to know there is someone out there who “gets you.”
Sincerely yours,
Bob Cronin
 
Ps. I read a lot of books when I was a kid, because it was a good escape, not because anyone ever encouraged me. I used to think the characters in them were real people. I know you’re not real, but you seem real to me. I think my life would be a good book and maybe even encourage other kids like me to make something of themselves. B.C.
In pencil on wide-ruled paper:
In the most boring house
On the most boring street
In the most boring town
In the world.
Dear Mr. Lane:
I am ten years old and I can’t check your books out at the library, because they’re in the adult section. The adults where I live care a whole lot about what kids shouldn’t read. If there was ever a real murder here, they would just die! But surprise! I read you anyway, because I have my ways. What do you think about kids who are allowed to watch you on tv, but not allowed to read your books? I know a family like that!
Respectfully yours,
Amanda Chan
In black ink, Eaton stationery:
March 17, 1985
 
Dear Max,
I know you’re not ready to hear this yet, but you’re better off without her. She was never good enough for you and I’m not the only one who thinks so. You know what would make you feel better? Hair of the dog and fish in the sea. You tell A.B. Early that it’s past time you had a new girlfriend. You tell her that there are readers out there who care about you and want you to be happy. I mean, it’s really up to her, isn’t it? The rest of us, we can spend ten years thinking we have this great marriage and aren’t we the lucky one, didn’t we just do everything right? And then it turns out we don’t have a friend in the world our husband didn’t try to screw at some barbecue or back-to-school night, and no one said a word about it to us so we were the only one in town who didn’t know. Real life is no story; it’s just what happens. But you can be happy any time Ms. Early chooses. So it’s annoying when she doesn’t and I won’t keep reading your books forever if you’re always going to be so mopey. If I were in charge, I’d start with your mouth and keep you guessing about what’s coming next.
You need me, but you don’t need to know my name . . .
Rima supposed this fell into the category of inappropriate proposals. She hoped they wouldn’t all be so vague.
The effort required to read the handwritten letters was getting to her, so she fished through the box for something typed. And found, on an onionskin paper so thin some of the periods were holes, the final page of a longer letter. The first thing she saw was her father’s name.
someone else with motive and opportunity. So here it is—I just don’t believe Bim Lanisell would kill anyone. He always seemed like a pretty straight-up Joe to me. Think you got it wrong this time.
Bet if you put poison on a cat’s claws for real, the cat would lick it right off, no matter how bad it tastes. Cats are very aware of their bodies. I know whereof I speak. I have twenty-two of them.
Of course, all this assumes Ice City is a mystery novel. Can we be sure of that? Not clear from the cover. In a horror novel the cat could have acted alone. There is a larger world than you allow, Mr. Lane, and the truth you end up with often depends on where you are when you start. I knew your father about as well as anyone knew him. Not highly thought of today, but that much he had right.
VTY,
Constance Wellington
 
PS. Joking about the cat, of course.
Rima felt a friendly connection to this woman who thought her father had been falsely accused. She stirred through the letters, looking for the first page, but it didn’t surface and her hands became unpleasantly dusty. She put the box on the floor and went to wash up and get ready for bed.
She thought that she’d look again for the first page tomorrow and maybe reread Ice City too, see if a case could be made for someone’s wanting to kill the cat. Of course, that still wouldn’t explain the other deaths, but murdering two people is not as bad as murdering three. And only the one with the cat was premeditated. Only the wife’s death was Murder 1.
Rereading seemed like something she could manage. It wasn’t the same as reading, not when you’d read a book as often as Rima had read Ice City. You didn’t need to concentrate so much when you already knew a book backward and forward.
It would be hard on Maxwell if she found out he’d been wrong all those years. He was already angsty enough. He was filled with angst. But her own loyalties had to lie with Bim; anyone would understand that.