Then Chandra came in and checked me out for the second time. This time the library did not have to screen Adah. Chandra herself paid the deposit. In cash.
When we were out of the library I said, “It’s great to see you again.”
She nodded, no smile and no words.
“You seem to be serious as all hell.”
She nodded again and took a deep breath. “We need you. The rest of them might not agree with me, but if they don’t they’re wrong.”
I thought that one over and said, “Let’s start here. You’re in the money. Where did you get it?”
“From my father’s stash.”
“Dr. Fevre’s?”
Chandra nodded, her lips clamped shut.
“He gave it to you?”
“It would take me a long time to explain, Mr. Smithe, and that part’s not important.” Her eyes were bright with tears, and she was starting to sniffle.
I said, “I’m not going to cross-examine you, Chandra. When you’re ready to tell me why you want me, and whatever else matters—”
“I hardly knew him!” It was blurted out. “He was my father and I maybe talked to him a couple of times, but he—he…”
“He was your father. Are we talking about Dr. Fevre?”
She nodded miserably.
I said, “Now something bad’s happened. We don’t have to talk about it now.”
“I want to! I have to!”
“And I want to get back to the Spice Grove Public Library,” I said. “Sometimes we just have to wait.”
We had left the Polly’s Cove Library by then and were on our way up the hill, headed toward Adah’s high white house with the widow’s walk. It was colder now than it had been when we were threading our way through the floating ice on that fishing boat, and there had been a northwest wind that would freeze your marrow. Now Chandra had a red wool coat that made her look grown-up, and a red wool cap with a big tassel to remind you that she was just a kid. I had one of those see-through dust jackets the libraries give us if we are checked out in winter and have enough sense to ask for one. There is no warmth to them (and no batteries, you bet) but at least they stop the wind and keep our clothes clean. I still wanted a cap; that winter it seemed to me that I had been wanting a cap all my life. Climbing the hill to Adah’s should have warmed me up, at least a little. Possibly it did; if so I didn’t notice it.
Chandra was wiping her nose. When she finished she said, “He’s dead, Mr. Smithe.”
“Your father?”
Miserably, she nodded.
“What happened?”
“Nobody knows. That’s why I got you.”
I thought about it. “You want me to investigate. I’m to identify the guilty party and tell you. If I can, you want me to assemble enough evidence to get a conviction or a confession.”
“Y-yes.”
I thought about that, hard. In the first place, as far as I could see there wasn’t one damn thing in it for me. In the second, the killer was probably her mother; she had sure as hell been the one who had mutilated that earlier edition of me.
“How long ago did this happen?”
“Last week. Last Friday.”
“Is that when it happened, or is it when you found his body?”
Chandra blew her nose twice. “I’m sorry I’m such a baby, Mr. Smithe.”
“Your reaction is perfectly natural. If you acted as though your father’s death meant nothing to you, I’d suspect you seriously. Now I don’t.”
Dabbing at her tears, she nodded.
“Did you find his body?”
She shook her head.
“Who did?”
“The lady captain.”
“Audrey? Is that who you mean?”
A nod. “Captain Hopkins.”
“You said this was Friday. At about what time?”
“Just before supper.”
So three full days, plus a few hours. I thought about that and all the rest until we got to the house. In a big stiff-looking room I would have called a parlor I asked Chandra, “Did your mother find anything else? Anything besides the body?”
Chandra shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“I’ll have to question her, of course.” I was talking mostly to myself. Louder, “Who called the police?”
Chandra thought about that one. After a few seconds had passed she said, “I think it must have been the house. Mother wanted to keep it quiet.”
“Is she angry at the house?”
“I think so, but we don’t talk about it.” Chandra paused. “She went to bed before they came.”
I nodded. “Still, they must have seen her and talked to her.”
“Yes.” Chandra sounded wretched. “They did, some of them. They woke her up and everything.”
For half a minute or more, my forefinger drew circles on the brocade arm of my chair. “What’s the name of the investigating officer?”
“I don’t know.” This, plainly, was a relief. “It seems like there’s always a new one.”
“I’ll have to find out about that.”
Chandra was silent. I don’t believe she spoke again until she had wiped her eyes and blown her nose, a polite little sound like the chug of a toy train; then she said, “He’s gone. I guess you’d like to see … but he’s not here.”
I said, “His body’s probably in the morgue.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“It’s where they store bodies involved in criminal cases, for a few days at least. After that, the body’s turned over to the medical examiner for an autopsy.” I was recalling the deaths of Colette Coldbrook’s father and brother. “That’s if the death looks suspicious. If it doesn’t, there is no autopsy.”
Chandra gulped. “I guess this looks suspicious, right?”
“I assumed it did from what you said about the police. What was the cause of death? The apparent cause, anyway.”
“I don’t know what you call it.” Chandra stopped and pretended to draw a bow.
“Are you saying he was shot with an arrow?”
She stared. “Can you say that? Shot? When it’s an arrow?”
I nodded. “That’s the oldest meaning, as far as I know.”
“Then that’s what it was. A big arrow. Right here.” She touched her neck.
“A big arrow? How long?”
She held her hands as far apart as she could. It had been as long as she was tall, maybe more.
I said, “That’s a spear.”
“Well, it has feathers at the end.”
“You’ve still got it?”
Chandra nodded.
“Who was there at the time? Who was in the house?”
“My mother and father, and your friend the lady captain. Mrs. Heuse—”
“Your parents didn’t return Audrey to the library?”
“My father said she could probably stay here if she’d go back there with him. I went along too.” Chandra sat down on a stiff-looking davenport. “She did, so my father returned her and paid the fine, only he didn’t take his deposit back. We left that in and checked her out again.”