3

Not by beef or by bread, are giants made or nourished.

Moby Dick

“Your attorney is here,” said Sergeant Fern, looking in at Kitty.

“My attorney?” Kitty was surprised. She had told them she had no attorney. She had said she was going to think about it. Now they had assigned her one. What if she didn’t like him? She stood up and backed into one corner of the cell as an extremely tall man ducked under the metal frame of the door and stood with his stooped head grazing the ceiling, his big body filling the space, crowding it.

“I’m Homer Kelly,” he said. “They’ve been telling me about you out there. Now you tell me.”

Kitty folded her arms and stared at him, as Sergeant Fern came back and created a moment of confusion by trying to get a chair inside. Homer Kelly? Kitty had been reading about Homer Kelly somewhere, ages and ages ago. She had been sitting in her rented car reading the Nantucket paper, and there had been something about Homer Kelly in the paper. He was here on the island for some reason or other, he was doing something about Melville, and she had been surprised to learn that he had been a policeman. A lieutenant-detective. And he must be some kind of an attorney as well.

His face had a keen severity Kitty liked. “I just came to see the eclipse,” she began slowly, watching Homer Kelly fold himself down onto the chair, which creaked under his weight.

“Why did you go to Great Point?”

“Because it looked empty. I mean from the air. And there weren’t any roads leading out to it. It looked to me as if I could be all by myself.”

“Why did you want to be all by yourself?” The big ugly face was hard, chill, stern.

“Because I was trying so hard not to run into Joe Green.” Kitty bared herself with a conscious effort of will. “We used to be lovers.” She didn’t know what else to call it.

“When was that?”

“Oh, a year ago. A year and a half. Then he changed his mind. He went to Nantucket and met”—what was her name?—“Helen Boatwright. And they got married.”

“They were married exactly a year ago today, I understand.”

“They were?” Kitty was surprised.

Homer Kelly looked at her. Then he crossed one enormous leg over the other, and a chair rung clattered to the floor beneath him. Absent-mindedly he felt around for it. There was a new look on his face. Kitty breathed a little more freely and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Look, my girl, you’re in a whole lot of trouble,” said Homer Kelly. “Now just let me get some things straight. Tell me what happened from the beginning.”

Kitty took a deep breath and started her story all over again. Doggedly she plowed on to the end, while Homer listened, leaning forward, gazing at the floor, his hands clasped between his knees. When she finished he leaned back and looked at her sharply.

“Where did you get the map and the newspaper that were in your bag?”

“At the airport.”

“And then you drove directly toward Great Point? And parked your car and walked six miles? You didn’t go into town or stop anywhere else?”

“No, that’s just it. Why would I go directly to Great Point to kill someone, when I didn’t even know that person was going to be there?”

Homer paused. “You mean you’re telling me you didn’t know Joe Green and his wife would be at the Great Point light?”

“Of course I didn’t! That’s what I said. I thought I would be all alone on Great Point. All by myself.”

Homer studied her again with his small sharp eyes. Then he took something out of his pocket. It was a copy of the Nantucket newspaper, the Inquirer and Mirror. “What did you see in this?” said Homer. “What do you remember?”

“Well, I saw about the people on the front page who were going to be doing things at that observatory, and I decided that was one place I wouldn’t go because it would be so crowded. And then I saw the article about what you should watch for during an eclipse. And let’s see—I read about you. That’s all.”

Homer opened his copy of the paper, folded it back and tapped an item on one of the inner pages, holding the paper up so that Kitty could see the headline: FAVORITE VIEWING SITES. “Did you read this?”

Kitty leaned forward and squinted at the headline. “No, I didn’t. What—do you mean that one of the viewing sites was the Great Point light?”

“Not just that.” Homer reached in his pocket for his glasses, put them on and began reading the article aloud. “ ‘Several parties have made plans to view Saturday’s total eclipse of the sun, our island spectacle, from various vantage points. Mr. and Mrs. Harold Edgeworth will set up a six-inch reflecting telescope at the Old Mill. Professor Randolph Spitz and an astronomical party from Johns Hopkins will gather on Altar Rock with telescopic and spectrographic equipment provided by the Smithsonian. The lighthouse at Great Point will be the site of an eclipse-viewing expedition by Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Green of Nantucket.’”

Kitty sat in shocked silence. Wordlessly she leaned forward and looked at the line of type where Homer’s finger was pointing. Then she looked at Homer and shook her head.

“You didn’t read that? It’s right under the article about that big boob Homer Kelly.”

“I see it is. But I didn’t read it. If I had, I wouldn’t have …”

Homer looked at her. “You’re the poet, aren’t you? Katharine Clark the poet?”

“Yes,” said Kitty.

“You said you heard a scream at the same instant that you screamed, when the sun went into total eclipse.”

Kitty’s face took on a stubborn look. She had been through the screaming problem several times already. She had sounded idiotic before. She would sound idiotic now. Warily she said it again, in a low voice. “It was the universe. The whole universe screamed.”

Homer reflected. “Well, how many voices did the universe have? Was there just one of them? Or more than one?”

Kitty tried to remember. “One,” she said. “Just one.”

“Was it loud? Did it scream with a human voice? Was it a woman’s scream? Was it everywhere? Far away? Nearby?”

Kitty thought about it soberly. Then she leaned back against the wall, feeling very tired. “It was a woman’s scream. It was her, of course, it was her. It was Mrs. Green. It was near me; quite near, I think.”

“Good.” Homer tested his footing in another fragile place. “What did you mean when you said, ‘The moon did it’?”

“Well—did you see the eclipse?”

“Yes, I saw it.”

“Well, then, I guess you know. Or you should know.” Kitty stopped and bit her lip.

“Oh, come off it. Well—all right, I guess I see what you mean. It was really something, wasn’t it?” He reached over and patted her arm. “Now let’s talk about the knife. Why do you carry a knife?”

“Self-protection. I’d carry a gun, except that I’m scared of guns. A knife can’t go off by mistake.”

“They think it’s not like a woman. I mean, you had an oilstone to sharpen it with, and everything.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Homer waved his hand. “Why was the knife out of its sheath?”

“The snap must have been undone. It falls out. I’ve cut myself on it sometimes.”

Homer shook his head. “Oh, Katharine Clark.”

“Kitty. You don’t believe me.”

“Yes, I believe you, Kitty.”

There was a pause. Homer looked at his shoe. “Let’s be sure we know everything they have. What did they take from your bag? Try to remember everything.”

“Well, there was a cotton bandanna and a red wool sweater, both of them soaked with blood, and a small purse with about fifty dollars in it. And a hairbrush. And the newspaper and the map. And an exposed photographic plate for looking at the sun. A pair of woolen stockings. And—the remains of my lunch, a small Thermos. My knife, the oilstone, the sheath of the knife. My airplane ticket. A key ring.”

“Any papers? Identification? Letters?”

“Oh, just the cards I carry around: driver’s license, Social Security, a university card so that I can park at B.U., a couple of—”

“That’s where you teach? Boston University?”

“Yes. And some credit cards.” Kitty clenched her fists. “I’m afraid there may have been a picture. It was down among the cards. I never took it out and threw it away.”

“Whose picture? Joe’s?”

“Yes.” Kitty felt strangled. She stood up and waved her arms. “Look, this is all so silly. I didn’t kill the damned woman. I just saw her there after she was dead. When can I go home?”

Homer Kelly looked at her, his face expressionless. Her heart sank. “You’ll be out on bail shortly,” he said. “Now, one more thing. Have you any history of mental illness?”

“Mental illness? Oh, of course, I see. They think I’m crazy. No. No, I haven’t.”

“You’ve never been institutionalized for mental illness? Have you seen a psychiatrist? During the last year?”

“No. Not last year nor ever. Except for that jerk this afternoon.”

“Well, all right. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.” Homer turned his head and bellowed for Sergeant Fern with a huge roar that startled and pleased Kitty. It was a kind of primitive force, that roar. So was the strange violent event that had picked her up so ruthlessly and set her down in this place. Perhaps one primitive force could overcome the other.

Homer stood up. “Look, Kitty Clark, here’s what’s going to happen. You’ll be arraigned, probably Monday. That’s a formality. Then you’ll be out on bail. I’ll see to that. Later on there’ll be a probable-cause hearing, and then the grand jury will deliver an indictment, and then we’ll have to get ready for a trial before the superior court in May. Except that I’ll make them postpone it till September, when the court sits again. So don’t worry. I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Good-bye.”

He was gone.

“Could I go across the hall?” whispered Kitty, as Sergeant Fern reached in the door for the chair.

“Certainly,” said Sergeant Fern, blushing; picking up the chair. It came apart in his hand and fell with an echoing crash that rattled off the tin walls of the cell. He collected the pieces of chair, hugged them to his chest and stood back to let Kitty out, his blush deepening because she was making noises in her throat and he thought she was laughing at him. But she was having all she could do not to start crying until she had closed the door of the bathroom behind her and turned on the water in the sink full force. Then she sobbed as quietly as she could, leaning up against the wall with her hands over her face. Feeling better at last, she washed her face and emerged from the small room.

Sergeant Fern was waiting for her, his face redder than ever. Had he heard her crying? Kitty followed him across the hall, glancing hungrily at the sky through the window of the door at the end of the corridor. “Oh, wait! Stop, stop,” she said. Something extraordinary was happening. Sergeant Fern looked where she was pointing.

“What is it?” he asked cautiously.

“Don’t you see it?” said Kitty. “The sun. It’s doing something again. It’s a double rainbow. Oh, please, may I look?”

“I don’t see anything,” said Sergeant Fern. But he let her stand at the door and look out. He stood beside her and looked too. The sun, as if to make up for having its eye put out, was making itself a twin. Above it in the western sky, beyond the brick building at the rear of the jail, glowed another, fainter sun, and passing through the second sun there was a rainbow, and above the rainbow there was another rainbow. I’m still here with bells on, the sun seemed to be saying.

Sergeant Fern smiled. “What do you know about that?” he said, and Kitty went back to her cell feeling comforted.