Charlaine Harris - Shakespeare’s Landlord

While I scraped determinedly at a wad of chewing gum one of the many Althaus children had dropped on the kitchen linoleum, I pondered Pardon’s violent death and the disrespect shown his body.

Once again, I wondered where that body had been hidden in its curious journeys.

Well, it could have been in the back of Pardon’s own apartment. But surely Claude, who’d been so amazingly forthcoming the night before, would have told me if traces supporting that idea had been found. So the body had been close, but not in Pardon’s own apartment. Not in the closet under the stairs; Pardon and I had apparently had the only keys, and the killer had not used Pardon’s keys, as the clean and orderly closet bore witness.

So, somewhere in the apartment house, or maybe in the garage? It seemed to me as if there was a thought in the back of my head, if I could just summon it up, something one of the tenants had told me, something that had made me wonder at the time… but God Almighty, I’d been talking to so many people lately. No wonder I couldn’t remember. It would pop to the top of my mind if I just ignored it. I began thinking about hiding places for Pardon’s body again.

I felt sure I could eliminate Mrs. Hofstettler’s and Claude’s apartments. Marie Hofstettler was very much on the ball despite her aches and pains-she’d have to be totally senile to miss a dead body-and Claude… just hadn’t killed Pardon. I didn’t know why I was so sure, but I was. The Yorks had been out of town until late. That left the O’Hagens-which meant Tom, since Jenny had been at work-Deedra Dean, Norvel Whitbread, and Marcus Jefferson.

As I plugged in the ancient Althaus vacuum cleaner, I thought about Tom O’Hagen. What if Tom had lied about Pardon’s living room being empty? What if Pardon’s body had been lying on the couch, as Deedra said it had an hour or so later?

I worked over that idea determinedly but got nowhere. I simply could not think of a good reason for Tom O’Hagen to lie about that. He could have said he thought Pardon was asleep, as Deedra had. He could have said everything looked as normal, so he assumed Pardon had stepped out or retreated to the bathroom for a moment. Instead, Tom had insisted the furniture had been moved, the throw rug rumpled, as if something had taken place in the room.

Finally, I abandoned Tom O’Hagen in disgust. It was Marcus Jefferson’s turn in the lineup of suspects. Marcus was certainly strong enough to move Pardon’s body. Marcus also had a grudge against Pardon; he obviously adored the little boy Pardon’s policies prevented him from bringing home. But that was hardly sufficient motivation to strike Pardon hard enough to kill him, at least to my mind. I could only picture that happening if Pardon had provoked Marcus in some way-had threatened to tell Marcus’s ex-wife that Marcus was having a fling with a white woman, say. Could Marcus’s former wife have kept the child away from Marcus if she’d received that information? Would it make such a difference to her, in this day and age? And Pardon had called Marcus’s workplace the day he died. But then, two hundred-odd people worked in the factory besides Marcus-among them, I recalled, was Deedra Dean’s stepfather, Jerrell Knopp, whom I knew as an upright, polite, softspoken bigot, who would undoubtedly have violent feelings about any relationship his stepdaughter might have with a black man.

But Jerrell, if he killed anyone, wouldn’t kill Pardon. He’d kill Marcus. Surely Marcus was supposed to work from eight to five? And Pardon had almost certainly died sometime before five. Marcus could have killed Pardon on his lunch hour, maybe. After all, if anyone had seen or heard from Pardon after the phone call he’d placed to his friend at eleven and Tom’s knocking on Pardon’s door at three, I hadn’t heard about it.

Well, then, Deedra. Deedra had been at work until about 4:30. She’d left her job early to give Pardon her rent check. Every Shakespeare Garden Apartments tenant knew Pardon was a stickler for getting paid on the dot. Why would the living room be in disarray at three if Deedra killed Pardon later? I tried to picture Deedra enraged, Deedra lifting something heavy and striking her landlord the crushing blow that had killed him. What would Deedra lift? There was nothing at hand there by the door to the apartment, and I didn’t think Pardon had been fool enough to stand talking to a young woman with a poker in her hand. Besides, if I knew Deedra, Deedra was more likely to vamp her way out of a bad situation than to resort to violence. I sighed. Scratch Deedra.

Then there was the hopeless, hapless Norvel, at this moment languishing-desolately, I hoped-in the Shakespeare jail, which was so outdated and decrepit that the town was wondering when, instead of if, it would be ordered to build a new one. Norvel was certainly dumb enough to commit murder at a time when other people were in and out of the apartment building. He was panicky enough to try to hide the body. He was prone to get angry enough to attack, as I knew from firsthand experience.

But though I tried to picture it while I gathered the wastebaskets from each room, I could not imagine anything Pardon could have on Norvel that would provoke Norvel to that much rage. Norvel was not especially strong after years of drinking, eating improperly, and avoiding hard work. The blow that had killed Pardon had been delivered by someone strong and someone furious. It could have been Norvel, by some extraordinary circumstance, but I was inclined to doubt it.

As I carried bags of garbage out to the Rubbermaid trash receptacles, dropped them in, and clamped the lids shut against loose dogs or raccoons, I felt glad I’d chosen housecleaning as my livelihood and not private detecting. This murder, I thought, pausing to stretch my back muscles, had been a murder of impulse, though whose impulse, I hadn’t the foggiest notion.

Pardon had finally spoken the sentence, the one sentence in his lifetime of watching, prying, and telling, the hearer could not bear to hear.

And that person had struck two blows, the second one closing Pardon’s mouth forever.

I locked the door to the Althaus home behind me, feeling satisfied at having, however temporarily, restored neatness to the Althauses’ chaotic environment. I could not figure out the identity of the murderer of Pardon Albee, but I could bring order to chaos.

I actually work harder for Carol Althaus than for any client I have, because frankly, Carol arouses my pity, which is not an easy thing to do. Carol is a nice, plain woman coping with a blended family of two children of her own and two of her husband’s, and Carol has limited brainpower to handle the load. She works hard at a low-paying job, comes home to try to feed and chauffeur four children under ten, and every now and then fields a phone call from her husband, whose job involves a lot of traveling. I often picture Jay Althaus in his quiet motel room, all alone, bed with clean sheets, TV with remote control that he alone wields, and contrast Jay Althaus’s evenings with Carol’s.

I had a break from 10:30 to noon; at noon, I’d clean a lawyer’s office during his lunch hour. During this time every week, I usually run errands and pay bills. The first thing on my list for today was collecting the money owed me by the Yorks. As I drove back into town, for the very first time it occurred to me that Jay Althaus might be longing desperately for his wife and children every night he spends on the road.

Nah.

Rather than park on the street, which was too narrow for my comfort, I drove behind the apartment building. At this time of day on a weekday, there would be plenty of spaces empty.

Since I’d been considering the garage as a possible storage place for Pardon’s body, I took the time to look it over. I pulled into Norvel’s parking space- the apartment number is above each space, the effect remarkably like horse stalls at a big racetrack-and stood back to scan the white-painted wooden structure.