O' Artful Death Part 21

THIRTY-ONE.

ON HER WAY to the Kimb.a.l.l.s' house, Sweeney took the little bankbook out of her pocket again and looked at the slip of paper that had been stuck between the back cover and the last page. She read the dates to herself. They were scrawled with different pens-one blue and one black-but all in the same hand. "7/1. 8/9. 11/28. 12/10," the writing read. to the Kimb.a.l.l.s' house, Sweeney took the little bankbook out of her pocket again and looked at the slip of paper that had been stuck between the back cover and the last page. She read the dates to herself. They were scrawled with different pens-one blue and one black-but all in the same hand. "7/1. 8/9. 11/28. 12/10," the writing read.

It hadn't struck her the first time she'd seen them because she hadn't been to the library yet, but the dates corresponded exactly with when the burglaries in the colony had occurred. Then she looked at the deposit dates. They hadn't seemed to follow any particular pattern, one in late July, two in August, another two in September, three in October, four in November. But now that she'd compared them with the dates of the burglaries, she could see that they started very soon after the first one and increased in frequency as time went on.

If it had been physically possible, Sweeney would have kicked herself. Why hadn't she gone to ask Charley about the book when she had given it to her? She wouldn't have gone to the trouble of leaving it for Sweeney if she didn't know or at least suspect why it was important. Sweeney was starting to have an idea of what it might be that Charley could have told her.

Sherry answered the door in her bathrobe. She looked as though she'd just gotten up and her face clouded when she saw who it was.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Sherry, is Charley here? It's really important that I talk to her."

"If you talk to her, are you going to tell the police and get her arrested?" Sherry turned around and went into the house, leaving the door open. Sweeney followed her inside. She had been cleaning. The hallway smelled of lemons; wood surfaces gleamed from a recent dusting.

"I know it must have looked bad, but all I can tell you is that I had no idea that Carl was going to get arrested. In fact, I don't think Carl had anything to do with your mother's death and I think Charley might be able to help me prove it."

Sherry looked up at that. "She went for a walk. I got her a puppy, a couple of days ago. Carl had promised her one for Christmas. She took him out for a walk, to get him used to his leash."

Sweeney had to resist screaming at her, "Why did you let her go alone?" Instead she said, "I'm going to go out and look for her, okay?"

Sherry nodded. "She just went for a walk," she said, as though trying to convince herself.

She started across the back field, calling out Charley's name. It was almost noon, and the sun was high above her, offering a little welcome warmth as she ran. She made a wide circle and came out by the cemetery, yelling for Charley all the while. But no one answered back.

Sweeney was about to turn around when she saw the entrance to the path through the woods. It was steep as you went down to the river. Suppose Charley had been walking and slipped. She wrapped her scarf more tightly around her neck and started into the woods.

When she reached the point where the path veered off toward the river in one direction and Birch Lane in the other, she started calling out Charley's name again. Her voice echoed across the river and back again. "Lee-Lee-Lee-Lee," it mocked her. A chickadee scolded her from a low-hanging pine tree and she watched it flit across the path, land and scold her again.

The path was slippery beneath the new layer of snow and she had to go carefully so she didn't fall. She was almost to the studio when she saw the puppy. It lay on its side about thirty feet below her on the riverbank, its body half-buried in the snow, its head twisted back grotesquely, and she knew it was dead without going down to see.

It was five or ten minutes before she found the small form, curled into a fetal position beneath a spruce tree, the Christmasy, wonderful smell filling the air. Sweeney saw the red of her coat before she saw that it was Charley and she stopped, afraid to discover what had been done to her. She remembered the way Sabina's eyes had stared up at her, the unnatural way her body had fallen.

But when Sweeney leaned over her and touched the b.l.o.o.d.y gash on her forehead, Charley's body jerked a little and her eyes opened once, fixed on Sweeney and shut again. She had wrapped Charley in her own jacket and picked her up before she remembered about spinal cord injuries and not moving people who had fallen. Charley's body was limp, but when Sweeney touched her skin, it was warm and she breathed as though she were sleeping, rhythmically and steadily. Sweeney felt the warm moistness of it against her neck.

And then she was running-it seemed improbable that she could run carrying the weight of the girl-running over the snow, holding Charley against her body.

"WHEN SHE WAS BORN, I felt as though she had been given to me so that she could save me," Sherry Kimball was saying. They were in Charley's room at the regional hospital in Suffolk, watching her sleep, watching the beeping and whirring of the machines and the dripping of various liquids into her blood. "I was into all kinds of stuff then, and they said she probably wouldn't even come out normal, you know. But she did, she came out perfect. More than perfect. And she was mine, although she always made me feel that I didn't know what I was doing. She always made me feel like I shouldn't have been trusted with her or something."

"I think everyone must feel like that," Sweeney said. "I bet if you could have asked your mother how she felt when she had you, she would have said almost the same thing."

"Yeah. Maybe." Sherry stood up and went over to the bed. "I shouldn't have let her go alone," she said to Sweeney. "With everything that's happened. You wouldn't have let her go, would you?"

"I don't know. I have no idea what kinds of good or bad choices I would make. But she's going to be okay, so it doesn't really matter." She knew that she should have said something about learning from mistakes, but instead she said, "She's going to be okay. You get a second chance." Sherry looked at her, tears in her eyes. Sweeney said it again. "You get a second chance."

THIRTY-TWO.

The storm of 1890 arrived a couple of days before Christmas, as the colonists who stayed were getting ready for the holiday and those who came north for the parties had just begun to arrive.Morgan later said that he could feel in his bones that something was coming, but he didn't have any idea how bad it was going to be. By the time it had stopped on Christmas Day, it lay as deep as a child or small woman and we told the children not to go outside for fear they would be buried.-Muse of the Hills: The Byzantium Colony, 18601956, BY BENNETT DAMMERS.THEY DIDN'T CELEBRATE Christmas Eve. Britta had already made oyster stew, and they were all eating halfheartedly when Sweeney came home from the hospital. Ian jumped up and asked her how she was and Toby tried to give her a hug, and get her to sit down, but she couldn't stand to sit there at the table and she told them she didn't feel well and wanted to go to bed. Christmas Eve. Britta had already made oyster stew, and they were all eating halfheartedly when Sweeney came home from the hospital. Ian jumped up and asked her how she was and Toby tried to give her a hug, and get her to sit down, but she couldn't stand to sit there at the table and she told them she didn't feel well and wanted to go to bed.

The day after Christmas she would tell Cooper what she thought had happened. She would give them Christmas at least. She would do that for Toby.

Now she was tired. Now she collapsed into the armchair in her bedroom and picked up the first book on the bedside table. She wanted to distract herself with words.

It was the collected Tennyson and she opened to the poem that had started all of this, and read it to herself.

"On either side the river lie Long fields of barley and of rye, That clothe the wold and meet the sky; And thro' the field the road runs by To many tower'd Camelot;"

Sweeney found herself thinking of Mary, who had gotten her into this in the first place. Mary, who had fancied herself a kind of Lady of Shalott, pining away on her island until she was rescued by her own Lancelot, Jean Luc Baladin. But unlike the Lady of Shalott, he had taken her away.

"There she weaves by night and day A magic web with colors gay.

She has heard a whisper say, A curse is on her if she stay To look down to Camelot.

She knows not what the curse may be, And so she weaveth steadily, And little other care hath she, The Lady of Shalott.

And moving thro' a mirror clear That hangs before her all the year, Shadows of the world appear.

There she sees the highway near Winding down to Camelot:"

She had always liked that line. Shadows of the world appear Shadows of the world appear. It was true, looking at things through a mirror was a misrepresentation. She thought of her mother, who had always put on her makeup for the stage using a double mirror, so as to negate the switching-around effect of looking into a single mirror. It was a common theatrical practice, so you would see yourself exactly as the audience did.

Wait a second.

She dropped the book onto her lap. Her mind was racing. Mirrors, shadows, it all danced around in her head, a dervish of images. There was something ... a window. Oh G.o.d.

She had been stupid. They had all been stupid. She felt a cold fear settle over her shoulders. The figures in the little book. She had thought she knew, but she hadn't. Not really. This time she really knew.

She read the rest of the poem.

"But Lancelot mused a little s.p.a.ce; He said, 'She has a lovely face; G.o.d in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott."

She waited, unsure what to do, and paced around the room, trying to put it all into order. After an hour or so she heard Ian come up the stairs, pause outside her room, and then go into his own room, carefully shutting the door.

Then she went and lay down on her bed, where she waited for an excruciating thirty minutes, the numbers rolling over slowly on the digital clock.

Finally, when the house was silent, she got up and put on a heavy sweater and a pair of ski pants over her sweats. She found a hat and gloves, grabbed a flashlight out of her bag, and tiptoed quietly out into the hall. She'd decided that she wouldn't use the flashlight until she was outside so that she wouldn't wake anyone up, so she felt her way down the stairs, shushed the dogs when they got up to greet her and stood there in the hall for a moment, gathering her nerve.

Then she took the set of boots and cross-country skis she'd used that first day out of the hall closet and slipped out the back door, shutting it softly behind her. Thankfully, the dogs stayed quiet, watching her for a moment through the gla.s.s and then dropping their heads to the kitchen floor.

She'd made it.

She snapped the boots into the skis, switched on the flashlight and looked out into the whirling snow.

THIRTY-THREE.

LATER, SHE WASN'T sure how she'd reached the studio. The beam of the flashlight gave her only a foot or so of visibility in the whiteout. Every time she put a ski forward, she feared she was going in the wrong direction, searching for the path through the dark, snow-cloaked trees. sure how she'd reached the studio. The beam of the flashlight gave her only a foot or so of visibility in the whiteout. Every time she put a ski forward, she feared she was going in the wrong direction, searching for the path through the dark, snow-cloaked trees.

But then the light caught the silvery length of the half-frozen river, and she hugged the bank as much as possible, knowing the path led straight to Gilmartin's little studio.

It was bitterly cold and the driving snow made its way under the collar of her parka and down into the ski boots. She kept going, pus.h.i.+ng her feet forward, even when they began to throb, when the muscles in her arms began screaming for relief.

Just when she thought she was going to collapse, she saw, up ahead, a brown block in all the white. She was there.

Sweeney stepped out of the skis and huddled on the porch for a moment relieved to be out of the driving wind and snow. When she'd recovered, she tried the windows, finding them locked, and pulled fruitlessly at the padlock on the door.

It took her a few minutes to find a rock under the snow, but once she had one in her hand, she wrapped her right arm in her scarf and punched the rock through the gla.s.s. Then she used it to break away the shards of gla.s.s along the window frame and placed her parka over the rough edges of gla.s.s, carefully climbing over the sill. Once she was inside, she put her parka back on and shone the flashlight along the ground and then up the walls. There was no one there.

The studio was a large room with a fireplace against one wall and a row of shelves against another. It was empty of any furniture except for an old easel, covered with splashes of multi-colored oil paint, and an army cot pushed against one wall.

But it wasn't empty. On the floor in front of the far wall, Sweeney could see an irregularly shaped heap. She went closer and lifted a brown tarp from the pile of stolen artwork.

She quickly found what she was looking for and she piled the paintings up to the side, wrapping them in the plastic garbage bags she'd put in her coat pocket. It wasn't an ideal way to transport art, but it would have to do. She was wrapping the parcel when she heard footsteps out on the porch and she shut off the flashlight, pressed herself against the wall next to the door, and waited.

After what seemed like an eternity, a figure came through the window. She turned the flashlight on, s.h.i.+ning it at where she imagined the face would be.

"Hey." It was Gally. He squinted at her, holding a hand up to s.h.i.+eld his eyes from the light.

She had not expected to see Gally.

"What are you doing here?" She continued s.h.i.+ning the light at him. He was wearing a parka and ski pants and his legs and arms were caked with snow.

"Don't be scared," he said. "I followed you. I want to talk to you."

She didn't trust her voice, so she just kept the light on his face.

"How did you figure it out?" he asked her.

"I went to the library," she said. "I looked at when the burglaries were. It couldn't have been a coincidence that they only happened when you and Trip were home from school. And my earrings. I started to see that there was a pattern. One thing followed another." He seemed to understand what she was saying.

"I don't want you to go to the police. I'll pay them back for it."

Stay calm, she told herself, just stay calm.

"But what about the other stuff? The stuff that's been sold already. The stuff that was dumped and that Carl Thompson found and fenced."

"I'll figure something out. Look, he doesn't know what he's doing. He's always liked taking stuff. Ever since we were kids. It's like a sickness. He can't help it."

Sweeney stepped a foot closer to him. He was upset, almost crying, and she felt sorry for him.

"I know," she said.

"He doesn't know any better," Gally said, running a hand through his wet hair. "Look, if you're not a twin, you can't understand. He's gotten caught a few times and my parents have had to bail him out. If he gets caught again, he'll definitely get kicked out of school. He doesn't even know why he does it. He doesn't need the stuff. He can afford to pay them back. He has money from my grandparents."

Sweeney went along, not knowing exactly where it was going to go. "What about the blackmail, and the murders?"

Now Gally looked genuinely surprised. "What do you mean, blackmail? And he didn't have anything to do with the murders." Gally looked around the room, desperate, as though he expected someone else to be there.

"Are you sure?" Sweeney watched him think about it.

A motor sounded outside.

"What is it?" she whispered.

Gally turned and looked. "It's one of the snowmobiles." Sweeney shut off the flashlight and told him to be quiet and stand with her against the wall. They listened to the footsteps outside, and the sound of a key in the padlock, then the squeaking of the door hinges. And then a light came on.

It was Trip. He was holding one of the hunting rifles, the same one Britta had trained on Sweeney the day she'd arrived in Byzantium. It struck her that this had been the cause of Britta's fear, the knowledge of what this boy, her son, was capable of.

"Hey," he said. "What's going on here?" He watched them, his eyes wide, his hands shaking.

"She's not going to the police, Trip," Gally said. "Don't worry. She promised she wouldn't go. We'll bring back all the stuff and no one will know." His voice had an edge of desperation.

Sweeney turned to him. "Look, Trip. You're in big trouble. But if you tell the police about it, you'll get off easy. You're a juvenile. You probably won't even go to jail. Gally thinks you've been burglarizing the houses because of your sickness, but if you tell them the truth, if you turn her in, things won't be as serious." Trip kept staring at her, the barrel of the long rifle pointed at her forehead.

"What do you mean 'her'?" Gally asked, turning to his brother. "Trip, what does she mean?"

"Nothing," Trip said. "She doesn't know anything."

"Yes, I do," Sweeney said. "I know about Rosemary."