Great Aunt Alice’s house was one of the old mansions in Washington Hill facing north on the eastern square. There was still a marble stone at the curb from the time when such a step was necessary to descend from a horse-drawn carriage, as there was a wrought-iron boot scraper at the foot of the stone-carved stairs that led to the front door. The house was a three-story townhouse built of Cockeysville marble, the first floor one and a half times as high as the second and third floors, which allowed for large wooden pillars and a small portico above the door. Narrow black shutters framed each of the four windows across the second and third floors, held in place by hammered iron S’s.
I had stopped on the way there to get one drink, which had turned into two, and I wondered how long this bender would last. I mean, I was still on the wagon and this was a temporary setback due to circumstances. But the alcohol had bestowed on me a general lightness that allowed me to think it wouldn’t be so bad to see Great Aunt Alice, it might even be nice to see a familiar face, and one who called you family even when you weren’t. She had always remained a friend to me, remembering me at Christmas and my birthday, and unashamed at chiding me for what my life had become. She was sure to take me in, and could be just what I needed to pull myself together. I pressed the button for the bell, and deep chimes played an eight-note melody somewhere inside, real classy.
Connie answered the door in a frilled apron tied over a black ankle-length skirt and a deep blue blouse. She didn’t seem surprised to see me standing there with my duffel bag in hand, some shirts hanging on hangers over my shoulder, she just took it in stride. “Mr. Rosenkrantz. You come in now, come right in.”
“Connie, you see,” I said, stepping inside, “I was wondering if...”
She closed the door behind me and took my things. “Miss Hadley in the conservatory,” she said. “Tea’s as soon as I get it heated up. I’m a have to make up a second plate.”
“Great, Connie, great, thank you,” I said, and smiled my charming smile. “I know my way.”
But she’d already turned to take my things up to one of the guestrooms.
The house had the sweet smell of lemon-scented dust cleaner. There were fresh flowers in a brass vase on the marble side table, and the exposed hardwood floor in the hall to the kitchen reflected white patches of light streaming from the back of the house.
I went through the front sitting room, the small dining room, and the sewing room to the open glass door to the conservatory, which ran along the back of the house. Great Aunt Alice sat in a white oversized wicker chair that faced the window to the garden. She had a large open book propped on her lap and reading glasses that she wasn’t using hanging from a chain around her neck. At the sound of my entrance, she laid her book flat on her legs, and looked up. “Ah, Shem, Shem. You come to see an old lady, what a life saver.”
“Great Aunt Alice,” I said and bent down to kiss her on the cheek.
She frowned. “Not sober, I see.”
“Not drunk either,” I said.
She shrugged, and pointed with an arthritis-bent finger at a round glass-topped table in the corner. “Bring that here, will you, Shem? Connie would do it, but you’re here, you can at least make yourself useful.”
I went over and lifted the table in both hands and set it down beside her. She worked the book in her lap onto the table, leaving it open at her place. “Sit down, sit down,” she said pointing again at another wicker chair. I pulled it a little closer and sat down. “I hope you’re prepared to talk about books. I could use a little conversation. Connie and I don’t have too much to say to each other. And I absolutely can’t get her to read. I try and try, but she just won’t touch a thing.”
I nodded, Mr. Debonair Literary Lion, the charming smile creaking on my face.
“But first, this horrible business about Joseph. Quinn was enough, but we were expecting Quinn. But Joseph, I’m trying to recover.”
I tried to produce the appropriate expression, but I didn’t know what that was, and just hoped I looked like a father in mourning.
“I understand you were the last person to see him alive.”
I shifted in my chair. “I don’t know—”
“Yes, yes,” she said, nodding. “Mary told me. What a good girl that Mary is. It’s a shame, oh, it’s a tragedy, that poor little thing. She comes and visits me once a week you know.”
“I didn’t,” I said.
“You know her?”
“We just met.”
“Oh, a wonderful girl. She’ll be by this afternoon, I’m sure. So unfortunate. But you were the last to see Joseph.”
“I guess I was.” Why was she harping on that? It made me nervous, like maybe she suspected something.
She gave me a contemplative look. “You’re not fooling me. You’re tight. I thought you were supposed to be a teetotaler now.”
“I am. I am. This thing with Quinn and Joe...”
“Nonsense. That’s no excuse. You look terrible,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“Well, you do.” She gave a single satisfied nod. “So what did he say? Last night?”
“Who?”
“Joseph.”
Connie came in then carrying a tray with tea, both hot and iced, and cucumber sandwiches, crackers, and pâté. I took the opportunity to collect myself. Of course Great Aunt Alice wasn’t suspicious. Why would she suspect something? It was that kind of paranoia that would get me caught. She was just being Great Aunt Alice.
“Thank you, Connie,” she said. “You can just put that over there. Shem will take care of it.” She turned back to me. “Well?”
“He was drunk. He...was upset still about Quinn, and angry at me, but I don’t know what about.”
“You should never have split with Quinn in the first place.”
That hadn’t taken long. “Are we going to go over this now?”
“Joseph needed a father. A boy should have a man around.”
“Thanks for the compliment, but I’m hardly a man.”
She nodded. “You said that. I didn’t say that. I’m not letting you off any hook.” She pointed at the tray. “Hand me that, darling, won’t you.” I got up, and poured her some tea. “And a lemon slice. Yes, that one.” She took the cup and saucer from me, and I sat back down. After a sip, she said, “The whole thing’s so terrible. And with you right there.” She shook her head again, “No,” and took some more tea. “What’s happening with that wife of yours, that movie star? She still locked up in the loony bin?”
I gave up pretending and let my face fall. “She is.”
“Why is that again?”
“She has psychotic episodes and she’s suicidal.”
She shook her head again. “You should never have split up with Quinn. And you need money, I can tell that.”
I had forgotten just how acerbic Great Aunt Alice could be. But I couldn’t help but feel as though I deserved to be put on the spot. “It’ll work out.”
“If you mean it won’t kill you, you’re absolutely right. These things happen. There are good times and there are bad times, and when you have a bad time, you just hold your head up and remember that tomorrow’s another day, it can always be better tomorrow. Now what do you want? Go on and ask it, if it isn’t money.”
I ran my hand over the stubble on my face, and crossed my legs. “How do you know...”
“You aren’t taking any tea. I’m not going to eat all of those sandwiches.”
I leaned forward and made myself a plate.
“Well?”
“I need to stay here for a few days.” I looked up to see how she was taking it. “Until the funeral at least,” I added. “Then I’ll be going back to S.A.”
“But you’ll need me to pay your airfare for that.”
I bit into a sandwich. It was cool and refreshing.
“Of course you can stay. Stay as long as you like. We’ll have Connie make you up a room. Maybe if I can watch over you, you won’t get into any trouble, and I can browbeat a novel out of you.”
My body deflated, I wasn’t able to stop it, I collapsed under the weight of it all.
Great Aunt Alice shook her head. “Poor Joseph. Poor poor Joseph. And that girl of his. She won’t get anything, since they weren’t married.”
I hadn’t even thought about that part of it, and I had a fresh pang of guilt, but I pushed it away. I needed the money more than Mary did. She would find a new beau in no time, but this was my last chance to settle my debts and start anew. And it had been an accident. I hadn’t killed Joe for the money. You could hardly say I killed Joe at all.
“You didn’t know him well enough,” Great Aunt Alice said. “He was really a sweet sweet boy. You didn’t know him, and now it’s too late for that, no thanks to you. You’re a real bastard, Shem, don’t think I ever forget that, but a helluva writer, what a writer.”
“I don’t know what to say to that.”
“Don’t say anything. You’d only screw it up. Ask me what I’m reading.”
And I did. And she talked nonstop for over an hour. She didn’t need my conversation at all. She just needed someone to talk at. Joseph dying didn’t change it one bit. I was as good as anyone else no matter what I might feel, and of course I couldn’t fool her about anything. She knew how much and what I felt. And this was my price to pay. For staying here, for not staying in touch, for not writing, for running around on my wife, for every wrong I’d ever done. Great Aunt Alice managed to remind me of all of it without ever saying a word. She was the mirror of truth. She was what laid bare my conscience and made it impossible to ignore, because I was always going to be inadequate as a man in her eyes even if I was ‘a helluva writer.’
After about two hours of that, it was getting up near dinner time, and Great Aunt Alice said I’d have to excuse her, she needed some time to get ready for dinner, and I should go up to my room too. The alcohol had long worn off, and I felt groggy, wiped out, a diffuse headache sitting on the top of my head like a newsboy’s cap.
I went up to my room. It was on the second floor in the rear of the house, canary yellow wallpaper with a pinstripe pattern, a bed with a white duvet and yellow accent pillows, a night-stand, and a bureau. Connie had hung my shirts and pants in the closet, and emptied my duffel bag into the bureau. The sight of the bed hammered me with exhaustion. I was still working off of a sleep deficit, even with the nap earlier, and suddenly the idea of dinner with Great Aunt Alice, of the hours ahead of me, made it hard to even stand.
I sat down on the edge of the bed. There was a telephone extension on the nightstand. I remembered telling Vee that I would call Palmer to see about the will, but I knew that calling Palmer was exactly the last thing I should do, since it would make it look like I was so anxious to get the money I didn’t even care that Joe had died. That was the kind of misstep that someone like Vee would make after they killed somebody. I was proud of myself for thinking of it, and refraining from making the call. Instead I picked up the phone and dialed the long-distance number to the Enoch White Clinic. My heart rate went up, and I started to sweat. I thought, as I did every day, if I could just hear Clotilde’s voice...
It was Nurse Dunn who answered. I called often enough that I knew all of the nurses’ voices. “Enoch White.”
“Yes. This is Mr. Rosenkrantz. I was hoping to speak to my wife, please.”
“It’s lunchtime. The patients cannot take phone calls. Phone calls can only be received between two and four in the afternoon.”
I looked at my watch. About four-thirty, which made it one-thirty in California. But I needed to talk to Clotilde. I couldn’t tell her anything, but it would help me just to hear her. “It’s only a half hour,” I said.
“Mr. Rosenkrantz, I’m sorry.”
“Well, can I talk to Director Philips?”
“He’s at lunch too. I can take a message.”
I sighed. “Yes, I just wanted to let him know that the legalities are being worked out here, but I will have the money. He shouldn’t do anything until I get back to California.”
She intoned, “Right. I’ll pass it on.” She’d taken the same message from me countless times. They all had.
“Goodbye,” I said, not wanting to get off, not knowing what I’d say.
“Goodbye,” Nurse Dunn said, and rang off.
I replaced the receiver in its cradle, and sat with my head bowed and my hands between my legs. I tried to elicit some emotion by forcing myself to think of Joe’s head—clunk—hitting the counter, but I was already too beaten to feel anything about that. Great Aunt Alice had taken it all out of me. Instead I fell back on the bed, and slept through dinner, through the night, and well into the next morning, and even then I was exhausted and didn’t want to get out of bed. But Connie knocked at the door to tell me that the police were here.