Wendy Hornsby - Midnight Baby

“Tea go down the wrong way, dear?”

“Mmmhmm,” I mumbled.

“Such a shame about Mike’s car.” Martha crossed her thin ankles. “He wasn’t angry, was he?”

I had some breath back. “Not about the car.”

“I see.” She had that wise look on her face. “I do like Mike, Maggie. There’s no bullshit about him, is there?”

“None.”

“What are you going to do next?”

“Well.” The Ramsdale house drew me. Several times, while I talked with Martha, I felt my attention drift toward the terrace next door.

“Maggie?”

“I’d give anything for another peek inside that house. Without Mike.”

“You would get into trouble.”

“I’m sure I would.” I turned back to Martha. “Tell you what. You have some time to kill before your plane. I wonder if you’d mind telling me again what you told me yesterday about the Ramsdales, only this time on videotape.”

She patted her hair at the sides and crinkled her face into a smile. “I always wanted to be a movie star. Mother wouldn’t hear of it.”

“You’ll hardly be a star from this gig. But I’ll send along any fan mail you generate.”

“When shall we begin?”

“Soon as I haul out the gear. I’ll bring a crew around another time to do it right. But I want to make a rough cut to show the grant people where I’m headed. It might be fun.”

While I fumbled with tapes and half-charged batteries, Martha went inside to fix her makeup and change into dark slacks; she had heard the camera added ten pounds. When she came out, she waved a cigarette in a foot-long holder. Like Garbo.

“Nice touch,” I laughed.

“I thought you would appreciate it.” She draped herself on the chaise, deflated bosom thrust forward, cigarette poised aloft. All she needed was a fur boa and a palm fan. “Where do we begin?”

“I’m not quite ready,” I said, waiting for the cigarette to burn out. “Talk to me. How long are you staying at your daughter’s?”

“Only a few days, I hope. I have to take my cat to the kennel. He hates the kennel.” She looked over at the Ramsdale palazzo. “My cat put me in mind of something, Maggie.”

“What’s that?”

“Hillary’s birds. We used to trade off – she would feed my cat, I would feed her birds when she was away. What I was wondering was, where are Hillary’s birds?”

“I didn’t see any birds in the house last night. Where did she keep them?”

“In her room.”

“We only got as far as the master bedroom.”

Martha was calm. “We have to do something. She loved those birds.”

“I can call the police.”

“It would take too long. Elizabeth has been gone quite some time. Those birds must be hungry by now. Wait here.”

Martha’s legs couldn’t keep up with her torso as she rushed inside. She was leaning so far forward I was afraid she would fall on her face. But she didn’t. She came out again in a moment, waving a key this time.

“Hanna gave me a key for pet-feeding purposes and emergencies.”

“Why didn’t you tell the police about the key last night?” I asked, close on her heels. “They destroyed the front door.”

“What, tell them and spoil their fun?”

She walked straight down the side of her house and up to the Ramsdales’ back door. The front door had been boarded over and sealed by the police. Though there was no warning attached to the back, I knew better than to open the door. So I let Martha do it.

The house was as we had seen it the night before, except that it was even lovelier with bright sunlight flooding through the tall windows. Martha hardly gave anything a glance, she was so intent on getting upstairs. When we reached the top, she was out of breath and dangerously red in the face.

“Why don’t you sit down,” I said. “Point out Hillary’s room. I can check on the birds.”

She pulled in a breath, an effort. “End of the hall. Last door.”

I waded through the thick carpet. At Hillary’s door, I hesitated before I turned the knob. Casey’s room was sacred, private territory. Mothers by invitation only. In ordinary circumstances, Hillary, I was sure, would not have liked this invasion.

The bird cage sat opposite the windows on a filigreed white wrought-iron stand. It was covered. And silent.

I lifted the cover and saw them, three dead parakeets, one white, one blue, and one yellow. They had been dead for a long time. There wasn’t very much left of them except bright feathers and brown bones.

I put the cover back and went out to report to Martha.

She was gone. Thinking about the open window the day before, the man with the cap that very afternoon, I panicked. “Martha!” I called, running down the hall.

There was no answer. Just as I reached the landing, I heard her. Snoring.

I turned into the master bedroom and found her fast asleep on the big canopied bed with her hearing aids beside her. Too much exertion, or too much Long Island iced tea, had done her in. I let her be, grateful for a little time alone to go back and look through Hillary’s room. The thought occurred to me that Martha was playing possum to that very end.

I left Hillary’s door open so I could hear Martha if she stirred. Then I began.

Hillary’s room was tidy, but otherwise it was a typical teenager’s dream room. The girl had fulfilled the entire alphabet of a youngster’s wish list: TV, VCR, CD, AM/FM, PC, as well as cable for MTV. Casey, overindulged by her guilt-ridden father in my opinion, didn’t have half the electronic junk Hillary had acquired.

All of her treasures, from media toys to an impressive collection of china dolls, were housed in custom-built cabinets with glass fronts. Her swimming medals and trophies were formally arranged in their own handsome case.

It was so puzzling. Everything I had heard, everything I saw, told me that Hillary had been taken seriously. Perhaps she had been spoiled. Perhaps she had been pushed to excel, as Lacy said. The important element I found was that she was treasured, adored even. The neighbors loved her. The community cared for her.

I thought about the birds moldering under the cover in the corner, and I felt prickly all over. It wasn’t normal to have left them in the house, dead.

When I was Hillary’s age, I used to hide comic books, Harold Robbins novels, and other contraband in my pillowcase. I checked Hillary’s pillowcases, her coordinated ruffled shams, the double dust ruffle, between the mattress and the box springs. Nothing there.

Her desktop was overly neat: textbooks lined up between marble bookends, fresh blotter, school-lined paper and stationery in folders, pens and pencils in a slotted tray, computer covered. Everything in place.

The drawers, however, were promising. They were crammed, as I thought they should be. Hillary had stashed away half-full tissue packs, broken swimming goggles, chewing gum and old holiday candy, used lipsticks, illicit notes from girlfriends written in goofy codes, hair ties by the handful, teenage romance paperbacks, and magazines with pictures cut out of them. The desk held exactly what it should have – her real stuff. But none of it helped me.

The books in her case ran to leather-bound classics. Hardly a spine was broken. Among them were her middle-school yearbook, The Mustang, and a gold-and-brown photo album. I took those two down and carried them over to the bed.

In her yearbook photo Hillary still had braces on her teeth. Her seventh-grade class had elected her best athlete. I managed to spot her in the Junior Scholarship Federation group shot, recognizing her from the pictures hanging on the walls of Randy’s study. Wholesome, tanned, athletic; she did not look very much like Pisces.

I put the yearbook aside and opened the album. The first picture was labeled “Hillary’s first day at school.” Her face shone with expectation. She had a ragged-looking stuffed dog under her arm, but everything she wore looked new, crisp plaid dress with a big bow under the collar, shiny oxfords and ankle socks with lace trim. Her dark hair was cut in a stylish shag that came low over her forehead and brushed her cheeks. A pretty, happy child embarking on a new adventure.