Рита Браун - Rest In Pieces

After the good Reverend left, the four law enforcement officials walked a bit away from the smell and conferred among themselves. Where was the torso and where was the head?

They’d find out soon enough.

12

The starch in Tiffany Hayes’s apron rattled as she approached the table. Little Marilyn, swathed in a full-length purple silk robe, sat across from Fitz-Gilbert, dressed for work. The pale-pink shirt and the suspenders completed a carefully thought-out ensemble.

Tiffany put down the eggs, bacon, grits, and various jams. “Will that be all, Miz Hamilton?”

Little Marilyn critically appraised the presentation. “Roberta forgot a sprig of parsley on the eggs.”

Tiffany curtsied and repaired to the kitchen, where she informed Roberta of her heinous omission. At each meal there was some detail Little Marilyn found abrasive to her highly developed sense of decorum.

Hands on hips, Roberta replied to an appreciative Tiffany, “She can eat a pig’s blister.”

Back in the breakfast nook, husband and wife enjoyed a relaxing meal. The brief respite of sun was overtaken by clouds again.

“Isn’t this the strangest weather?” Little Marilyn sighed.

“The changing seasons are full of surprises. And so are you.” His voice dropped.

Little Marilyn smiled shyly. It had been her idea to attack her husband this morning during his shower. Those how-to-please sex books she devoured were paying off.

“Life is more exciting as a blond.” He swept his hand across his forelock. His hair was meticulously cut with short sideburns, close cropped on the sides and back of the head, and longer on the top. “You really like it, don’t you?”

“I do. And I like your suspenders too.” She leaned across the table and snapped one.

“Braces, dear. Suspenders are for old men.” He polished off his eggs. “Marilyn”—he paused—“would you love me if I weren’t, well, if I weren’t Andover-Princeton? A Hamilton? One of the Hamiltons?” He referred to his illustrious family, whose history in America reached back into the seventeenth century.

The Hamiltons, originally from England, first landed in the West Indies, where they amassed a fortune in sugar cane. A son, desirous of a larger theater for his talents, sailed to Philadelphia. From that ambitious sprig grew a long line of public servants, businessmen, and the occasional cad. Fitz-Gilbert’s branch of the family, the New York branch, suffered many losses until only Fitz’s immediate family remained. A fateful airplane crash carried away the New York Hamiltons the summer after Fitz’s junior year in high school. At sixteen Fitz-Gilbert was an orphan.

Fitz appeared to withstand the shock and fight back. He spent the summer working in a brokerage house as a messenger, just as his father had planned. Despite his blue-blood connections, his only real friend in those days was another boy at the brokerage house, a bright kid from Brooklyn, Tommy Norton. They escaped Wall Street on weekends, usually to the Hamptons or Cape Cod.

Fitz’s stoicism impressed everyone, but Cabell Hall, his guardian and trust officer at Chase Manhattan, was troubled. Cracks had begun to show in Fitz’s facade. He totaled a car but escaped unharmed. Cabell didn’t blow up. He agreed that “boys will be boys.” But then Fitz got a girl pregnant, and Cabell found a reputable doctor to take care of that. Finally, the second summer of Fitz’s Wall Street apprenticeship, he and Tommy Norton were in a car accident on Cape Cod. Both boys were so drunk that, luckily for them, they sustained only facial lacerations and bruises when they went through the windshield. Fitz, since he was driving, paid all the medical bills, which meant they got the very best care. But Fitz’s recovery was only physical. He had tempted fate and nearly killed not only himself but his best friend. The result was a nervous breakdown. Cabel checked him into an expensive, quiet clinic in Connecticut.

Fitz had related this history to Little Marilyn before they got married, but he hadn’t mentioned it since.

She looked at him now and wondered what he was talking about. Fitz was high-born, rich, and so much fun. She didn’t remember anywhere in her books being instructed that men need reassurance of their worth. The books concentrated on sexual pleasure and helping a husband through a business crisis and then dreaded male menopause, but, oh, they were years and years away from that. Probably he was playing a game. Fitz was inventive.

“I would love you if you were”—she thought for something déclassé, off the board—“Iraqi.”

He laughed. “That is a stretch. Ah, yes, the Middle East, that lavatory of the human race.”

“Wonder what they call us?”

“The Devil’s seed.” His voice became more menacing and he spoke with what he imagined was an Iraqi accent.

One of the fourteen phones in the overlarge house twittered. The harsh ring of the telephone was too cacophonous for Little Marilyn, who believed she had perfect pitch. So she paid bundles of money for phones that rang in bird calls. Consequently her house sounded like a metallic aviary.

Tiffany appeared. “I think it’s your mother, Miz Mim, but I can’t understand a word she’s saying.”

A flash of irritation crossed Marilyn Sanburne Hamilton’s smooth white forehead. She reached over and picked up the phone, and her voice betrayed not a hint of it. “Mother, darling.”

Mother darling ranted, raved, and emitted such strange noises that Fitz put down his napkin and rose to stand behind his wife, hands resting on her slender shoulders. She looked up at her husband and indicated that she also couldn’t understand a word. Then her face changed; the voice through the earpiece had risen to raw hysteria.

“Mother, we’ll be right over.” The dutiful daughter hung up the receiver.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. She just screamed and hollered. Oh, Fitz, we’d better hurry.”

“Where’s your father?”

“In Richmond today, at a mayors’ conference.”

“Oh, Lord.” If Mim’s husband wasn’t there it meant the burden of comfort and solution rested upon him. Small wonder that Jim Sanburne found so many opportunities to travel.

13

Those townspeople who weren’t gathered in the post office were at Market Shiflett’s. Harry frantically tried to sort the mail. She even called Susan Tucker to come down and help. Mrs. Hogendobber, positioned in front of the counter, told her gory tale to all, every putrid detail.

A hard scratching on the back door alerted Tucker, who barked. Susan rose and opened the door. Pewter walked in, tail to the vertical, whiskers swept forward.

“Hello, Pewter.”

“Hello, Susan.” She rubbed against Susan’s leg and then against Tucker.

Mrs. Murphy was playing in the open post boxes.

Pewter looked up and spoke to the striped tail hanging out of Number 31. “Fit to be tied over at the store. What about here?”

“Same.”

“I found the hand,” Tucker bragged.