Glen Cook - Old Tin Sorrows

Morley brought a lamp closer so there'd be more light. I lifted the painting.

Damn me if Jennifer didn't let out a squeak and faint. And Cook, who hadn't deigned to seat herself, collapsed a moment later.

"Hell of an impact," I said.

Doc Doom stared at the blonde. He got the look Morley had last night. He shook himself loose, said, "Lay it down again, please." Once I had, he said, "The man who painted that had one eye in another world."

"He's got both of them there now. He was murdered night before last."

He waved that off. It was irrelevant.

Morley asked, "You see what was in the background?"

"Better than anyone with an untrained eye, I suspect. That painting tells a whole story. An ugly story."

"Yeah?" I said. "What is it?"

"Who was the woman?"

"That's what I've been trying to find out since I got here. Nobody but me ever sees her. The rest of these people say she doesn't exist."

"She exists. I'm surprised you're sensitive... No. I did say she'd manifest frequently. Sometimes they will attach themselves to a disinterested party, gradually trying to justify themselves before an impartial court."

"Huh?"

Morley said, "I get it. I was wrong, Garrett. She's not the killer. She's your ghost. She didn't need secret passages to get in and out."

"Morley! Morley. You know damned well that's impossible. I told you about... " Some sense wormed through my confusion. There was a crowd here. Was I going to be dumb enough to tell them all I'd fooled around with a spook?

Was I dumb enough to believe it myself?

"She's the haunt," Doom agreed. "There's no doubt. That painting explains everything. She was murdered. And it was the culmination of a betrayal so immense, so foul, that she stayed here."

I had it. "Stantnor killed her. His first wife. The one he got rid of. Supposedly he bought her off and sent her away. He murdered her instead. Maybe there is a body in the cellar, Morley."

"No."

"Huh?"

That was Cook, getting up off the floor. "That's Missus Eleanor, Garrett."

"Jennifer's mother?"

"Yes." She moved to the table. She lifted the painting. She stared. I was sure she saw everything Snake Bradon put there, maybe stuff Morley and I missed. "So. He did it hisself. He's lived a lie all these years because he can't give up that alibi. It wasn't no fumble-fingered doctor at all. That lousy bastard."

"Wait a minute. Just wait a damned minute—"

"The story is there, Mr. Garrett," Doom said. "She was tortured and murdered. By an insane man."

"Why?" My voice was in what you'd call the plaintive range. I wasn't calming down any. I couldn't get last night out of my head. That hadn't been any spook... Well, if it was, it was the warmest-bodied, friskiest, most solid spook there ever was. "Doc, I need to talk to you in private. It's critical."

We went into the hallway. I told him. He went into one of his reflections. When he came out a week later, he said, "It begins to make sense. And the child? Jennifer? Did you sleep with her, too?"

Well, hell. They say confession is good for the soul. "Yes. But it was kind of her idea... . " Stop making excuses, Garrett.

He smiled. It wasn't a salacious grin; it was a eureka kind of grin. "It falls together. The old man, your principal, whose life she's been leeching slowly as she sets his feet upon the path to hell, is drained this morning. She'd have had to do that to assume solid form with you. Then the other—her own daughter?—wounds her by taking you to her bed. You, the focus she's chosen to justify. You've been tainted. That has to be punished." He got reflective again.

"That's crazy."

"We're not dealing with sane people. Living or dead. I thought you understood that."

"Knowing it and knowing it are two different things."

"We have to talk to the troll woman. It would be wise to know the circumstances of those days as well as possible before we take steps. This isn't a feeble haunt."

We went back inside. Doom asked Cook, "What reason would General Stantnor have had for doing what he did? From what Mr. Garrett tells me, she was frightened of everything, had almost no will of her own. It would take great evils to animate her to the point where we'd have the situation that exists here now."

"I don't tell no stories—"

"Cook. Can it!" I snapped. "We have the General nailed here. He murdered Eleanor, evidently in extremely traumatic fashion. Now she's getting even. That doesn't bother me too much. I kind of like the idea of retribution. But now she's started on Jennifer. I don't like that. So how about you just puke up some straight answers?"

Cook looked at Jennifer, who hadn't yet recovered.

"I kind of hinted at it but I guess not strong enough. The General... Well, he was obsessed with Missus Eleanor. Like I told you. But that never stopped him from rabbiting around hisself, tumbling every wench who'd hold still while he threw her on her back. He wasn't discreet about it, neither. Missus Eleanor, naive as she was, figured it out. I can't tell you what she felt for him. She wasn't never one to talk or show much. But she had to be his wife. She didn't have nowhere to go. Her parents was dead. The king was out to get her.

"She was hurt bad by the way he done. Real bad. Maybe, because she was the way she was, lots more hurt than a deceived wife ought to be. Anyway, she told him if he didn't straighten up, she'd see if what was good for the gander was good for the goose. She wouldn't never have done it. Not in a million years. She didn't have the nerve. But that didn't make him no never mind. He thought everybody worked inside like he did. He beat her half to death. Maybe would've killed her if I hadn't of got between them. Anyway, he just went crazy after that. Poor child. Only time she ever stood up to him... . "

I wanted to tell her to make the long story short, but it might not be smart to interrupt while she was puking her guts.

"Well, the poor child was pregnant with Miss Jennifer. She didn't know it yet. Naive child. Once she did figure it out, it was a day too late. I like to pounded his head for him but he wouldn't believe he was its dad. Not till she was gone. Him thinking that poor child was as loose as him! With who? I asked him. Was there anybody around the house? Hell, no. Not but him. And the child never went outdoors. Half the time she didn't even come out of her room. But try to convince a fool with logic.

"He put her through hell. Pure hell. Tormented her. Tortured her, I think. She had bruises all over. Trying to get her to tell him the name. I done what I could. That wasn't never enough. Only made him worse when I wasn't looking. And it got worse when the old General passed." She looked at me. There were tears in her eyes the size of larks' eggs. "I swear, though, I never thought he killed her. I never believed that even when there was some whispers. If I'd of known it then, I'd of plucked off his fingers and toes and arms like plucking feathers off a chicken. How could he of killed her?"

"I don't know, Cook. But I'm going to ask." I looked at Doctor Doom.

He asked, "You intend to confront him?"

"Oh, yes. I sure do." I grinned like a werewolf. "He hired me to unravel his troubles no matter how much he didn't like what he learned. I'm going to give him apoplexy."

"Take it easy," Morley said. "Don't get so upset you can't think straight."

Good advice. I've been known to gallop around like a beheaded chicken when I'm excited, doing more damage to myself than to the bad guys. "I've got it under control." I glanced at Jennifer. She'd begun to recover while Cook was talking. She looked a little goofy, still, as she stared at the portrait of her mother. She seemed amazed and puzzled. She mumbled, "That's my mother. That's the woman in the painting in father's bedroom."