Sonnet of the Sphinx Page 5
“Oh, nothing like that,” Grace said hastily, then could have kicked herself for giving up such a handy excuse for her nosiness.
Shortly afterward she thanked Miss Webb for tea and departed, aware that she had probably raised more questions in Miss Webb’s mind than she had answered in her own.
5
“So what exactly is the Serpent’s Egg?”
Grace tried once more to have the conversation that Peter had managed to elude all day. They were in Cherry Lane Park, enjoying a picnic supper and the Thursday evening concert.
“Try this.” He held a chocolate truffle to her mouth. Grace nibbled, the tips of Peter’s fingers delicately grazing her lips.
“Mmm. Mr. Fox, are you trying to—” She intended to say “sidetrack me,” but somehow, as though she had seen too many reruns ofThe Graduate, the words came out “seduce me?”
“If you have to ask, I obviously need more practice.”
“Any more practice, and you’d lose your amateur standing.”
Peter laughed, and Grace realized that the odds of having a serious conversation were not in her favor.
In the gazebo several yards down the hillside, a local string quartet played songs that Grace’s grandparents had probably listened to. Cherry Lane Park was over a hundred years old. She imagined that Eden Monkton might have sashayed its shady paths summer evenings with her faithless lover. Granted, those were the bleak days of blackouts and bombing raids, but life must still have gone on in some semblance of normalcy.
The gazebo was strung with white lights that twinkled like tiny stars in the fiery sunset. Beneath clouds of pastel cherry blossoms, people sat on blankets or park benches. The nostalgic music and drifting snowlike petals reminded Grace of a pretty scene in a musical glass globe.
“Seriously,” she persisted. “Is it a jewel? Does he think you have it?”
Peter topped her wineglass again. “Nice vintage, this.”
“Could it be something to do with the acoustics of the park?” she mused. “I can hear you, but you can’t seem to hear me.”
“I hear you,” Peter said. “ ‘An echo and a light into eternity,’ ” he quoted Shelley, his tone mocking.
“As Time Goes By” floated on the breeze.
That really was a Golden Oldie. The 1930s, if she wasn’t mistaken, and thanks to the filmCasablanca, irretrievably linked with World War II in Grace’s mind. Hearing it now almost seemed like a “sign,” were she the kind of girl who believed in omens and talismans.
She burst out, “Surely the authorities could help us. Couldn’t we go to the Turkish embassy?” She had described her earlier encounter with Harry. Peter had listened without expression and without comment: no satisfying display of outrage on her behalf, no comforting assurances that such a thing would never happen again.
He laughed. “The Turkish embassy? I don’t think they’ll be terribly sympathetic.”
“But if it’s simply a misunderstanding—”
He offered her another bite of truffle, his eyes amused—which was quite annoying.
She ignored the morsel of chocolate waved teasingly beneath her nose. “There must be some legal recourse.”
“Grace, I’m sorry you were brought into it, but the situation will resolve itself shortly.”
Even taking into account Peter’s antipathy for any kind of law enforcement, this seemed to be taking self-reliance to extremes.
“What does that mean? How can it possibly ‘resolve itself’?”
But Peter seemed to have nothing to add.
They dined on smoked turkey and mozzarella with pesto on focaccia bread still warm from the oven. Marvelous wine, chilled fruit, and chocolate truffles completed their repast. Grace knew that she was deliberately being distracted with wine and kisses and picnic basket goodies, but she was, alas, weak-willed or sleep-deprived enough to let Peter get away with it.
“How’s the quest for the lost Shelley going?”
“I’m afraid it’s futile.” She sighed, lying back on the blanket. “If John Mallow did find a poem by Shelley, it seems to have been completely overshadowed by the scandal of his personal life.”
“You’ve only started looking,” Peter pointed out.
“True. But every direction I turn is another dead end. There’s simply not enough to go on.”
“That’s never stopped you before.”
“I suppose.” She stared up at the pines trees, tall and black in the dusk. “I could try to contact the Monktons, but it’s a bit awkward. I mean, what do I say? Remember the gentleman who got your auntie into trouble?”
“Auntie?”
“Granny? Actually, I have no idea of Eden Monkton’s relationship to the surviving Monktons.”
“Can’t help you. I’m not familiar with the family.”
“And even if there was a poem, Mallow might have sold it or lost it or donated it to a museum.”
“If he donated it to a museum, the odds are good that someone would have heard of it.”
“True.”
He said with suspect easiness, “Well, once you figure out what became of John Mallow, you’ll know what he did with the poem.”
Grace made a face. “The old send-her-off-on-a-
wild-goose-chase-so-she-doesn’t-interfere-with-me routine.”
“Not at all. I’m merely encouraging you to do what you love—and are so very good at.”
“Uh-huh.”
She thought of poor disgraced Eden Monkton abandoned by her lover. There had been a time when she had no patience with women who let such things happen to them. That was back in the comforting days when she believed all it took was a bit of self-control to master one’s destiny.
The string quartet was having a bash at “When I’m Sixty-Four.” Grace listened to the sprightly melody, feeling inexplicably pensive.
“Do you suppose you’ll ever—that is, do you ever wish you’d had children?”
“Isn’t this the sort of question the ladies’ magazines counsel against?”
“Yep.”
He studied her for a moment then shrugged. “I don’t think I should make a very good parent.”
She didn’t respond, because she suspected he might be right. It was nearly impossible to visualize Peter in the role of father. She wondered what his own parents had been like. He never spoke of family, never spoke of his past. What kind of childhood had produced a man like Peter? Her own had been unremarkable except in its normalcy. She had envisioned much the same for her own eventual offspring.
“I love children,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
“I miss teaching.”
He kissed her, and she felt it all the way down to her toes. She remembered seeing a film once where the movie heroine’s shoes flew off her feet at the hero’s kiss. If any man’s technique could knock a girl right out of her socks, it would be Peter’s. She was smiling beneath his mouth, and Peter raised his head.
“What’s the joke?” His warm breath was scented of basil with a hint of chocolate.
She shook her head, and he sighed. “It’s a wonder I have any confidence left.”
Grace chuckled, and he kissed her again with a subtle insistence that robbed her of laughter and oxygen and reason.
Some delightful minutes passed beneath the sheltering canopy of trees. There was a kind of bittersweet pleasure in such moments. Though she longed to be like the Romantic poets she so admired, and live completely and intensely in the present, her nature was such that she couldn’t help worrying about committing emotionally to an unknown future.
Perhaps he sensed her conflict, for after a time, Peter pulled back. He seemed to study her face in the dusk. Then he slipped his arm around her, settling back against the blanket. She rested her head against his surprisingly comfortable shoulder, her body relaxing against his. The wine and lack of sleep from the night before were catching up to her. Her eyelids felt weighted. The combination of music and twilight acted like a drug.
&
nbsp; Peter’s hand trailed lazily through the length of her hair. She turned her head, but found only the ascetic line of his profile. Looking past him, she stared up at the stars.The white bees of the moon, someone had written. Who? She couldn’t quite seem to recall…
She woke to a symphony of frogs and crickets. Unbelievably, she had fallen asleep. Deeply asleep. The music was silent. The night air was damp, chilly. Grace sat up stiffly and pushed her hair out of her eyes.
She hoped with all her heart she had not been snoring.
Not that she would have disturbed anyone, because she was alone.
“Peter?”
No answer.
She wondered how late it was, how long she had slept. The concert had apparently been over for some time. The gazebo and surrounding tables were empty. Though there were still people in the park, they were clearing off, moving farther and farther away, voices fading as they moved toward the entrance gates.
Grace threw aside the corner of the blanket that had been tucked around her to keep her warm, nonplussed that Peter had left her sleeping and defenseless. Obviously there must be an explanation. Perhaps he’d had an irresistible craving for a banger. Perhaps he had felt the call of nature.
After all, she was perfectly safe here. Nothing ever happened in Innisdale.
Beyond the occasional murder…
Scrambling to her feet, she scanned the trees that seemed to have suddenly grown several feet. Small sounds came from the underbrush.
“Peter?” She meant to call out in a strong, firm voice, but her words came out sounding tentative and hushed, as though she were afraid of being overheard by the wrong person.
She was scaring herself. Grace stooped, shoveling the picnic things into the basket, rolling the blanket, breaking camp as fast as though a posse were on her trail. Frankly, she would have welcomed a posse. Blanket wedged under her arm, lugging the heavy basket with the other, she hurried to catch the retreating voices and lights.
The picnic basket brushed noisily against the bushes as she picked her way down the uneven trail.
“Peter?” She couldn’t explain the instinct that had her whispering his name.
There was still no answer. She went on, stepping carefully. She didn’t want to fall or turn her ankle.
Something brushed against her face and she bit back a cry. It was only a moth.
The woods, which seemed a place of peace and serenity during the day, now seemed full of silhouettes and creeping odors.
She was nearly to the bottom of the hillside when her eyes picked out the dark shape of a log lying across the path. Her steps slowed, stopped.
The log had eyes.
She swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry, as the moonlight cast the shadows of leaves over the shirt and upturned face of Hayri Kayaci.
6
Grace supposed that it said something about her personal growth and professional development—or the crime level in Innisdale—that she did not scream. After a swift sharp inhalation, she knelt beside Kayaci.
Dark blood pooled beneath his head, soaking the path. His eyes—she averted her gaze, and gingerly touched his hand. He was still warm. There might be a chance. She must get help…
She rose on shaky legs and turned. A man’s form loomed up before her.
Grace did scream, then.
The man did not move. The oval reflections of his glasses made twin white moons over his narrow face.
“What have you done?” he whispered.
“I?”
Voices drifted closer as others swarmed the hillside in response to Grace’s scream.
The bushes moved and a tall, familiar figure stepped out. A nimbus of moonlight circled his head like a saint’s halo, or so it seemed to Grace’s overwrought imagination.
“Peter,” she said with relief.
Peter stared down at Kayaci, then knelt and felt his throat in a perfunctory manner. The Turk’s eyes gazed fixedly up at them.
“Is he—?” It was a silly question, and her voice faded away.
“Very.” He wiped his hand on the grass, and rose. When he spoke, it was to the young man. “What happened?”
“I was headed down the path and found Ms. Hollister kneeling beside…it.”
The nasal voice sounded accusatory, but Grace reminded herself that this was exactly what she had been doing.
“Who are you?” she asked. “How do you know my name?”
“Naturally I know who you are.”
“Really? And why would that be?” She noticed that he still had not given them his name. She started to point this out, but Peter interrupted.
“What were you doing on the path?”
What were you doing off the path?Grace wondered, but kept her mouth shut.
The young man bridled. “It’s a public path. Why shouldn’t I be on it?”
“Just taking the evening air?”
“Not that it’s your business, but I was on the hillside listening to the concert.”
If Peter had a reply to this, it was forestalled as another man crashed through the shrubbery. “I heard—” He looked from one to the other of them, noticed the body on the ground, and took a step back. “Mother of God. Is he—? What happened?”
“There’s been an accident,” Peter told him. “We need help.”
An accident?
The newcomer lumbered down the hillside, calling, “There’s been an accident!”
Peter took the picnic blanket from Grace’s unresisting grip and tossed it over Kayaci’s remains. Consideration for the living, not respect for the dead, Grace concluded.
“Perhaps it was an accident,” the young man said slowly. He stepped farther down the trail from them. “Perhaps he tripped and hit his head on a rock.” He sounded unexpectedly conciliatory.
Grace was reminded of the White Queen inAlice in Wonderland: “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Perhaps if they all put their minds to it, they could all believe in this particular impossible thing.
“Perhaps.” Peter was noncommittal.
“I suppose it could have happened that way. The terrain is uncertain here. Visibility is poor.” He took another of those sidling steps.
“Nonetheless, the police will want to question you,” Peter said, “so do quit trying to scuttle away.”
“Police!” And then the young man bit off whatever else was on his mind. He positioned himself out of arm’s reach down the path and waited with them until the authorities arrived.
All the while they waited, Grace tried in vain to catch Peter’s eyes. She would have liked to speak privately to him. It was not so much that she felt they should compare notes or “fix” their stories—well, actually, thatwas pretty much what she felt. But she was frustrated by the anonymous young man who kept watching them as though he suspected they might be planning to roll the body for cigarette money.
In short order they were joined by the emergency services—and the police. A stubby, rotund man pronounced Kayaci officially dead.
Grace heard the young man identify himself as Scott Sartyn before she was separated from her two companions. So this was Innisdale’s new librarian. Fleetingly, she wondered how this buttoned-down type got on with Roy Blade, the motorcycle-riding warden of books.
Once the preliminaries were over, a constable guided her down the hillside to the now-abandoned gazebo for her account of the fatal accident. She hoped that the fact that they were being interviewed separately did not mean trouble.
Having had an embarrassing amount of experience with police inquiries, Grace answered briefly but as thoroughly as seemed wise. The constable took notes, but his questions were casual and his manner sympathetic. He did not seem to doubt the suggestion that Kayaci had suffered some kind of accident on the hillside, and Grace hoped devoutly that his faith would be rewarded by the coroner’s findings. It would make everything so much simpler if Harry had simply tripped over his own giant feet and hit his head on a rock.
Toward the end of her interview, they were joined by another man in jeans and a T-shirt. She did not recognize him, but the constable sucked in his gut and became slightly more formal. Was the newcomer a reporter? Another police officer—perhaps off duty?
The newcomer listened intently but without comment as Grace answered the constable’s final questions.
She could not help glancing toward the man in jeans, although it was impossible to really get a good look at him as he stood out of the circle of lamplight. She had the impression of whippet-slim vitality, and his silence had a formidable quality to it.
“Well then, Ms. Hollister,” the constable began in what was clearly conclusion. He was interrupted by the observer, who asked suddenly, “Did you know the deceased?”
Grace spoke politely to the shadows. “I’d met him on two separate occasions.”
“What were the circumstances of those meetings?”
She answered carefully. “The first time I met him he came to the shop—Rogue’s Gallery, that is—to see Peter. Peter Fox. He owns—”
“I know who Peter Fox is,” the shadow said curtly. “Why did Kayaci visit Rogue’s Gallery?”
“I’ve no idea.”
Necessary lie number one. Or so it seemed to Grace. These days her moral compass seemed to have hit Magnetic North Pole.
After a heavy pause: “And the second occasion?”
It was ridiculous to feel guilty, Grace assured herself. She had done nothing wrong. And she refused to believe Peter capable of murder. If only she could trust that the police wouldn’t leap to the obvious—and wrong—conclusion because of his record.
She lifted a shoulder. “It was—I don’t know what it was. He stopped me in the park this morning. He was mumbling and incoherent. He grabbed my arm.”
“Why?”
“Why was he mumbling and incoherent?”