The House of Memory (Pluto's Snitch Book 2) Page 9

  Burton stopped at the table and spoke to the young woman, who finally looked up at him. Whatever he said made her smile. A moment later, she left the dining room.

  “We can’t change her life for her,” Reginald said, “but we did change tonight. The waiter gave her the money I paid him.”

  “That was kind.”

  “If you women and the Negroes ever banded up together, you could take over this country.”

  We both laughed, and it was much needed. “What a day,” I said at last.

  “Indeed. And you weren’t touring the chamber of horrors with Dr. Perkins’s most devoted follower.”

  “Nurse Brady’s a true believer, eh? Despite the dangers?”

  “You have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet. That’s the way she looks at it.”

  “I don’t want Camilla to be one of those eggs.”

  “Neither do I. So we’d better figure out what’s going on with her. In watching and listening to her, I found her believable. She makes eye contact. She isn’t evasive or sly. She doesn’t remember trying to harm David or why she did it. There’s something outside Camilla at play here. Any ideas?”

  I tried to clear my mind and let random thoughts float up. What I was attempting had no scientific formula or easy way to get to the truth. I had to allow my sixth sense, my intuition, free rein. Madam Petalungro assured Reginald, and me, that this would become easier the more I practiced. I visualized Camilla sitting in her chair. As I focused on the image, I was aware of the room darkening, as if a cloud had blotted out the sun. Or an entity had seeped into the space.

  “There’s something not right about her. A darkness around her.” I hesitated. “But I don’t think she’s haunted. Not as in a ghost who takes charge of her.”

  “This darkness. Can you tell me the source?”

  “I wish I could. To some degree, I think Camilla’s aware of it. She could leave Bryce Hospital whenever she chooses. But she stays. She’s that afraid of harming David Simpson.”

  Reginald tilted his head. “You think she knows more than she’s letting on?”

  I didn’t want to say that. “I don’t know. I’d like to get her out of the building and on the grounds tomorrow. I want to see her outside, away from the watchers. If you keep Nurse Brady busy, I’ll manage it.”

  “I don’t like you going off with Camilla alone. What if she becomes violent?”

  “She won’t. It’s not about me.” I couldn’t say why I was so certain, but the darkness that gathered around Camilla was for her alone.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The waiter finally came back to our table, and we ordered a light meal. The day’s heat was fading, but it was still hot and breathless in the dining room. The oscillating ceiling fans helped, but it was July, inland, in Alabama. For a split second, I longed for the breezes of Savannah, but my life there was done, a closed chapter. In Savannah I’d been a daughter, a bride, and a wife, in turn. I felt Alex’s hand holding mine as we stood on the shore of Tybee Island, our faces turned into the salty breeze off the Atlantic. I’d wanted nothing more than to make Alex happy, to have a family, and to grow old together. I’d been denied that by German bullets in a war across the ocean.

  “Where have you gone, Raissa?”

  “Woolgathering off Tybee Island.” Lies were unnecessary with Reginald. “I was longing for Alex.”

  He reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.” I was beyond the surges of grief that had once overwhelmed me. Sadness, though, was never far. “Alex and I postponed our honeymoon. When he returned from the war, we’d planned to go to Adam’s Cove in the Poconos. We’d have our honeymoon, along with the other soldiers who wanted solitude and serenity. While Alex was overseas, I spent a lot of time planning that trip. I thought if I made the future real in my mind, I would keep him safe.”

  “And now you find yourself in a hotel with another man.”

  Despite the melancholy that surrounded me, I smiled. “And a scandalous man at that.”

  “Men have little use except as scandalous partners and train robbers.”

  “You’ve been studying the attitudes of the famous outlaw, the Sundance Kid.” I’d found Reginald reading one of the dime novels about the outlaw on board the steamboat.

  “Had I not become a snitch with you, I would have made an excellent outlaw.”

  “I think not.” I realized then that he’d successfully diverted me from my doldrums. “You’d have to sweat and hide out in dirty places, sleeping in barns, and eating beans from a can. You’re too much of a dandy to live like that.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.” He was about to say something else when he stopped. “The private investigator who came by Judge Sayre’s home. That’s him.”

  I turned slightly to follow his gaze. Jason Kuddle sat in earnest conversation with a uniformed police officer at a table by the window. “He was working on the case of that girl who disappeared north of Montgomery. I wonder if they’ve made any progress.”

  “I’ll ask.” Reginald folded his napkin and stood. He crossed the dining room and stopped at Kuddle’s table. A moment later he was shaking hands with Kuddle and the policeman. They chatted a moment, and then the men turned to me and nodded.

  I wanted badly to go over and join the conversation, but it would have been too forward. Besides, I had no idea what story Reginald was telling Kuddle about who we were and what we were doing in Tuscaloosa.

  The waiter stopped at the table and refilled my wineglass. Five minutes later he came out with our food. Reginald returned with a crooked smile. “Kuddle’s here on another case. He was surprised that I knew him.”

  “And the officer?”

  “Michael Driggs. He worked in Montgomery with Kuddle. Eat something or they’ll know we’re talking about them.”

  The chicken cordon bleu was excellent. Midway through Reginald caught my attention. “Don’t look now, but Kuddle’s coming over. He was too curious about you not to.” Reginald stood. “Mr. Kuddle. How good of you to come and speak to Mrs. James.”

  “I understand you’re a writer,” he said, winking at Reginald. Kuddle was a handsome man with blue eyes and longish, light-brown hair. He dressed well, and he was alert. His gaze didn’t linger but moved across me, my food, the wine. He paid attention to the details, which would be a useful habit for a gumshoe. “What do you write?”

  “Different things. Mostly short stories.”

  “Don’t be modest, Raissa. Tell him about your ghost stories.” Reginald turned to Kuddle. “Her first story will be published in October in the Saturday Evening Post. It’s quite the chilling tale.”

  “I’ll pick up a copy. I like a good yarn.” Kuddle looked around. His companion had left. “So you’re staying here in the hotel?”

  “Yes. It’s lovely, isn’t it?” Reginald was smooth.

  “The food’s good. I won’t be staying. I have to travel over to Mississippi on the late train, but I’ll be back in a few days.”

  “Are you working on a case?” I couldn’t stop myself.

  “Yes.” He didn’t offer anything else.

  “You know writers are so curious,” I said. “Can you share some details? A missing person? Maybe a cheating husband?” I laughed softly. “I suppose I’ve read too many novels where mysteries are resolved by a brilliant character seeking answers. Are you familiar with Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White?”

  “I’ll have to pick up a copy,” Kuddle said again, making it clear he had no intention of doing so.

  “It’s thrilling. And The Moonstone, too. And, of course, there’s Poe and Dickens and Doyle’s brilliant Sherlock Holmes. Any private investigator would aspire to the genius of Holmes’s rational deduction.” I blathered on, giving the impression of a bookwormish woman who lived in tall tales.

  Kuddle’s gaze flicked from me to Reginald, then about the room. He was not a reader—that much I could tell. “Facts, the here and now, that’s how I butter
my bread. Books are nice, and meaning no disrespect, but they’re stories made up.”

  “Raissa is very enthusiastic about her writing,” Reginald said. “Perhaps you could share some stories about your cases.” He indicated a chair at our table. “You might inspire a masterpiece.”

  Kuddle checked his watch, a fine bracelet timepiece that transcended the more feminine models designed as jewelry for affluent women. “Sure, I’ll sit for a spell.”

  “Tell us about your work,” I said, pulling out my notebook. “This will help me so much. Do you mind if I take notes?” I wasn’t stretching the truth. Kuddle was a real gumshoe. Reginald and I had our talents, but neither of us had worked as policemen or trained to solve crimes. Any tips would be useful.

  “When we were at Judge Sayre’s house, we couldn’t help overhearing the conversation with the judge. What about the young girl from Autaugaville?” Reginald asked. “Any leads?”

  “An interestin’ case.” Kuddle seemed to have relaxed and decided to enjoy himself. “Pretty girl, Pamela DuMond, with no history of giving her family trouble. Her teachers said she was a good student, a bit weak in the higher concepts of math they’ve just begun to teach.” He laughed. “Girls need to learn to cook and clean. Math’s a waste.”

  I swallowed a gulp of wine to keep from speaking.

  “So no one thinks she ran off?” Reginald kept the conversation going.

  “Her family says no. Her friends say no. They say she was reliable, a good girl.” He tilted his head quickly. “I say maybe. Relatives see what they want to see.”

  “Was there evidence she ran away?” I asked.

  “Her best dress and new shoes are missing. That indicates to me she was planning to wear her finery somewhere.”

  “And how did she leave? She couldn’t have walked. Autaugaville is miles from anywhere, and if she’d tried to cross the river on the ferry, they would have seen her.”

  Kuddle grinned. “You’re a pretty smart tootsie.”

  “Either someone picked her up, or she’s injured between the school and her house.”

  “Unless her family’s involved.”

  Kuddle’s words made me think of poor, abused Connie Shelton, whose desperation had led to deadly arson. “Was there something going on in the DuMond family? Did you find evidence of abuse?”

  “No evidence, but the family’s . . . different.”

  “How so?”

  “Off-kilter, wrong.” Kuddle pursed his lips. “Somethin’ ain’t right, if you get my angle. The father was tore up about the missing girl, but the mother, she was more afraid.”

  That did sound suspicious. “Did the neighbors have any information?”

  “The girl lived on an isolated farm, and from what the family said, she was a hard worker in the garden and with the livestock. No one outside the family knew much about her. She went to school every day. She made good marks. She was shy and didn’t make friends.”

  That didn’t sound like any sixteen-year-old girl I knew. Friends were everything in that adolescent world. Then again, for a child being abused, friends could be dangerous. “There wasn’t anyone she called a friend?”

  “There was a girl named Hope, but her mother said she couldn’t speak with me.”

  “Hope who?”

  “Harrington. Upper-crust family. Didn’t want to be involved. Mr. Harrington’s a big wheel in the county. Seems like the whole community knows something they aren’t tellin’.”

  “Surely if you pressed them . . . I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be presumptuous.”

  “I get what you’re hittin’ on, Mrs. James. The thing is, I’m not a copper anymore. I can’t make people talk. I can ask, but that’s the limit of my authority. If they don’t want to talk, they tell me to beat it.”

  “I understand.” But I was still frustrated.

  “And I understand your concern. I’m worried, too. Could be she ran off to the city, tired of hoeing weeds and diggin’ taters. Or it could be a lot worse.”

  “Could you tell us what happened before she disappeared?” Reginald asked.

  “She went into town to get alum for puttin’ up pickles. She was gonna spend the afternoon with a girlfriend. She made her purchase and left the grocery store. She was seen walkin’ home, just like she did all the time. When she wasn’t home by four o’clock, her mama sent an older sister to look for her. The older girl found the grocery bag on the side of the road, no trace of Pamela. Vanished.”

  It didn’t sound good. Not at all. Girls didn’t vanish off the side of a dirt road unless someone took them. “You said some of her things were missing?”

  “Seems like she may have met up with someone and left. Either she took the clothes with her when she walked to town—except no one remembers seeing her carrying anything except a grocery sack. My guess is she planned this out and left her good clothes hidden in the woods.”

  I couldn’t imagine running away from home, but not all families were like mine. I was lucky, and I knew it. My parents had been quiet and loving. My father was a professor, and my mother gave private lessons in Latin and piano. They’d shared a great love and a quiet life; I had been a child of privilege. Not in money, but in love and education. They had died in an accident, and I missed them every day.

  “A girl can’t simply vanish,” I said.

  “They can and do. Every day.” Kuddle leaned back in his chair. “I alerted the law in eight counties. I figured she’d head to Montgomery, and if not there, maybe Birmingham, if she can hitch a ride.”

  “If she’s still alive.”

  “I’ve put out the word and posters. Not much else we can do. The DuMond family doesn’t have the money to hire me for long. After I’m off the case, she’ll be forgotten.”

  “It shouldn’t be that way.” I might as well have smacked my head into the wall, like the poor patient I’d seen at Bryce.

  “I don’t disagree, Mrs. James. But I can’t change how things are. Pamela DuMond’s gone. From the photo I got from her mama, she’s a pretty young woman. I’m afraid that isn’t a good thing in this case.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Kuddle left us, and with him he took the last of my fading energy. We finished our meal in quiet companionship, and I realized Reginald was exhausted, too. The things he’d seen in Dr. Perkins’s operating theater—I didn’t want to know.

  We parted at the elevator on the third floor. Reginald’s room, 303, was at the end of the corridor. Mine, 317, was at the opposite end of the hall. “Sleep well,” he called to me.

  “As soon as I climb into bed, I’ll be a goner.” I gave him a wave far perkier than I felt as he disappeared inside his room. A few moments later, I’d used the heavy key to open my door. The maid had turned the bed linens back and opened a window. The curtains flitted on a gentle breeze, and I stopped for a moment to explore the view of the train station and a now-sleepy downtown. I was too tired for a bath, but I brushed my teeth and put my clothes away.

  The minute I slipped beneath the sheets, I was asleep. I skidded into unconsciousness, barely aware of the soft bed or the sound of a train stopping at the depot. I was back in Savannah, sitting on the porch with Alex. Our chairs side by side in the gloaming of a summer evening, we both read. Our bare feet touched on a wicker hassock. I looked over at him and felt my heart rent asunder, a physical pain, with the power of my love.

  “I love you.” I reached across and touched his cheek, the lightest stubble scruffing my palm.

  “I love you more,” he said.

  “Impossible.” I closed my book. “I love you more than anyone has ever been loved.”

  “You’ll love again,” he said. “You have much love to give.”

  “Only you.” I laughed at his foolishness. Some marriages lost the tender feelings, but we wouldn’t be those people. We completed each other. “We’re married, you know.”

  “Till death do us part.” He wasn’t smiling. “Let me go, Raissa. Find love again.”

  “What?”
I couldn’t believe what he was saying.

  He shifted so the dimming light caught him full-on. His face was riddled with bullet holes. Blood bloomed through his white shirt.

  A terrible pain in my chest made me gasp. I woke up struggling out of the darkness that suffocated me, then lay rigid on the bed, inhaling and exhaling, forcing my heart to calm. A dream or visitation, it didn’t matter which. The conclusion was the same. Alex was dead.

  I drank a glass of water and pulled the sheet over me. I didn’t expect to sleep again, but I slipped back beneath the darkness and found myself in the hallway of a gloomy hotel. Behind one of the closed doors, I heard low moans, the rhythmic creaking of the bed springs, the sounds of sex.

  In a cloudy mirror, I caught my own reflection. I wore my favorite dress, a sleeveless green shift banded at the hip. It was cool and roomy, allowing me to move freely.

  Though I didn’t know where I was, I somehow knew I was traveling and spending the night in a hotel. It was an adventure, and I walked down a long, dark corridor with electric lamps at regular intervals providing a gloomy sort of light. My room was at the end of the hall. As I approached my door, I was aware of the echo of my footsteps. The sounds of lovemaking ceased. I was alone in the hotel.

  Behind me shadows gathered, drawing closer. If I turned, the hallway would be empty. Wall sconces generated dim pools of light in the dark hallway. As I stepped forward, the nearest light fizzled and went out. All down the hallway the bulbs popped and died.

  “Help me.” A girl whispered the words, though I couldn’t see her.

  “Please don’t hurt me.” A different voice spoke, also young and female.

  Out of the murkiness, two girls stepped forward. They wore the straight, short dresses with the fringe and beads of the flapper. Cloche hats, dark lipstick, and heavy mascara completed the image of the modern woman. As I stared at them, blood seeped from the corners of their right eyes, sliding past the corners of their lips and dripping onto the bodices of their dresses.

  “Please don’t hurt us,” they said in unison. “We’ll be good.”