Sara Paretsky - Sisters on the Case

She crossed the broad drive that separated the hotels and the Art Gallery from the riverside park and plunged from light into darkness. Trees blocked out the streetlights, swallowing up the ambient glow of the city and the water. She had forgotten how dark it could be down here and ran down the broad path in a mild panic. When she reached the riverbank, she slowed to catch her breath. The water ran smoothly along beside her, murmuring reassuringly, giving her back her strength and courage. She stretched her legs out and began walking quickly and confidently toward the meeting place.

She passed the four pillars and looked up the hill-side. There was the wooden bench, halfway up the hill. A figure on the bench was silhouetted in the light from the street above, arms spread out, head tipped back, long legs, crossed at the ankles, stretched out in front of him-the essence of relaxation.

She stopped dead halfway up the slope and gasped. ‘‘Omigod.’’ It came out between a squeak and a scream. ‘‘Jack! No-it can’t be.’’ She clapped her hand over her mouth to keep herself from saying more. The man looked over at her. The headlights of a passing car swept over his face and she laughed. ‘‘Oh. It’s you. For a minute there, I thought you were someone else. You really gave me a turn. What are you doing here?’’

‘‘Waiting for you, Estelle.’’

‘‘Sorry. The name is Kate, or Katie, if you must.’’

‘‘That’s up there, on the other side of the road. Down here by the river you’re Estelle. Beautiful Estelle Leblanc. You know, in this light you look almost the same.’’

‘‘Almost?’’

‘‘Lithe, slender, graceful as a deer. And strong.’’

‘‘I still am,’’ she protested. ‘‘I haven’t gained a pound in thirty years.’’

‘‘Maybe. But you’ve turned from a schoolboy’s fantasy into something nasty, hard and stiff. It’s sad. But no matter. We’re not here to talk about the ravages of time. I saw you that night with Jack, you know. Down there. On the far side of the railing.’’

‘‘I don’t know anyone named Jack,’’ she said. ‘‘You’re crazy. And I think I’ve heard enough.’’ She tried to move away and found that her wrist was caught in a grip of steel.

‘‘I don’t know how you got him down there on the rocks. Remember how terrified he was of water? But you did, and you pushed him in. I saw you.’’

‘‘That’s crazy. Why would I push him in?’’

‘‘Because he was hard to get rid of, Estelle. Because you promised to marry him and he believed you. He told me that.’’

‘‘That’s a lie. I never said I’d marry him.’’

‘‘He bought you a ring-he showed it to me. You accepted it and promised to be his forever. But why say you’d marry him and kill him a month later?’’

‘‘I never killed him. He slipped,’’ she said quickly. ‘‘He did. It was awful. It had been raining and the rocks were slippery. I tried to save him but I couldn’t.’’

‘‘No- I tried to save him, Estelle,’’ he said. ‘‘You ran away. I jumped in after him, but it was dark and I couldn’t find him.’’

‘‘That’s not true.’’ She slumped down on the bench beside him. ‘‘I thought I was pregnant,’’ she said, in a vague, faraway voice. ‘‘My dad would’ve killed me. But I wasn’t, after all. When I told him, he wouldn’t take his ring back.’’

‘‘You’d got rid of the baby. Jack’s baby.’’

‘‘So? Big deal.’’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘‘You can’t print any of this, you know. I’ll sue you and I’ll sue the paper for all it’s worth. Okay. We were engaged. Then we broke up. Jack drowned trying to rescue his little brother who came to get him and fell in the river. The little brother got out, but he didn’t. Tragic, but by then I’d gone home. That’s what they said. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s the truth.’’

‘‘But I’m not a journalist, Estelle. I’m not even on the committee.’’

‘‘What are you, then?’’ Her eyes widened in alarm.

‘‘Call me an avenging angel.’’

A pair of early-morning joggers, their backs warmed by the rising sun and their sweaty faces cooled by a light breeze off the river, saw her first.

She was lying on a wooden bench near the paved walkway. It was not far from a children’s playground, bright with swings and slides. Birds chattered and quarrelled in the lush, neatly trimmed trees. The dappled sunlight flirted with a patch of dried blood caked in her expensive blond hair.

Chiselled into the wood of the seat back was the inscription ERECTED IN MEMORY OF JOHN WILLIAM MARTINEAU BY HIS LOVING BROTHERS, EDWARD AND NORMAN.

‘‘Look at that.’’

‘‘She’s drunk. Leave her be.’’

‘‘She might be hurt.’’ The young woman walked over. ‘‘There’s blood on her head.’’ She leaned over. ‘‘Kevin, come here,’’ she said unsteadily. ‘‘I think she’s dead.’’

A laker, heavily loaded and riding low in the water, slipped downstream toward Lake Erie, indifferent to the lives and deaths of the land-dwellers. The river lapped gently against its walls.

‘‘Sergeant, do you think she could’ve been carrying a thousand bucks in twenties in that pouch around her waist?’’ He eased himself into the room, standing more or less at attention.

‘‘No, Al, I don’t. She was just out for a walk.’’

‘‘Maybe she was looking to buy drugs.’’

‘‘I doubt it. Why do you ask?’’

‘‘Because there’s a John Doe downstairs. He came into emergency this morning, unconscious, with…’’ He pulled a notebook out. ‘‘Nine hundred and sixty-sevendollars on him and a thirty-dollar bottle of scotch, almost empty. He could have bashed her over the head last night and taken the thousand.’’

‘‘He hits her over the head, he strangles her, takes a thousand bucks, leaving her the twenty we found in that pouch thing? He wanted to send her home in a cab, maybe? No, Al, I don’t believe it.’’

‘‘The guys who found him in the sculpture garden had a look around. They found blood on a bench near him and down by those horses’ heads.’’

‘‘He kills her and carries her body all the way up the river? Why? So she’ll be closer to her hotel?’’

‘‘You were the one who said the body’d been moved, Sergeant.’’

‘‘Not me. The doctor did. Where did they pick the drunk up?’’

‘‘On a bench near the horses’ heads. He’s been there before, they said.’’

‘‘We’d better see him. Bring him up when he can talk.’’

It was not until five o’clock that the committee in charge of Sight and Sound realized they were missing a speaker and began to make serious inquiries.

At eight o’clock a miserable-looking man, small, thin and dishevelled, was brought upstairs to be interviewed. An ineffectual attempt had been made to clean him up for the ordeal.

The sergeant looked up. ‘‘Hi, Billy. How’d you get mixed up in this?’’

He blinked. ‘‘Hey, Paul. How’s it going? You talking about the couple down by the river?’’

‘‘Probably. Al? It’s your John Doe. You take it.’’

‘‘Name?’’ asked Al.

‘‘Billy. Everyone calls me Billy.’’

‘‘Full name. Your real name.’’

‘‘Oh. William Sampson.’’

‘‘We’d like to know how you laid your hands on almost a thousand bucks,’’ said the sergeant, yawning. ‘‘In your own words.’’

‘‘It was like this, see. I had half a bottle I was saving from the night before…’’

‘‘Yeah, sure,’’ said Al.

‘‘Let him talk, Al.’’

‘‘And I come down to sit on the bench behind those horse heads. It’s dark there and no one’s gonna bother you, mostly. Well-there’s this guy sitting there, staring down at the ground behind the bushes, like, and so I look to see what he’s staring at. There’s a woman lying there wearing light-colored clothes. I didn’t notice anything else about her. I ask him if she’s drunk and he says, ‘Yeah, she is, and she’s sleeping it off.’ ’’