The traitor beside her, p.26
The Traitor Beside Her, page 26
“It didn’t take long after he died for me to figure out that I needed a job. My parents were gone by that time, so there was nobody I could ask for help. No place to go. This job and the cheap rent at Arlington Farms saved me. I survived it all, but there will always be a void here”—she put her hand over her heart—“where Arthur should be.”
“Does it help your feelings to play the piano? When you play, it sounds like you’re pouring out your whole heart.”
“Not all of it. If I poured my whole heart out, everybody in the church would be terrified.” Her laugh tinkled, a brittle echo of the sound of her fork on the heavy stoneware plate.
“I wish I could play like that. My grandmother showed me how to find Middle C and read some notes. And I can play a hymn or two, but that’s all.”
“I’ll teach you. If you can do that much, you’ll move right along. You’ll be surprised at how fast you’ll learn.”
“Oh, I wasn’t asking you to… That’s a kind offer, but…” Georgette’s voice trailed off. “I’d love to learn, but I can’t afford lessons.”
“Don’t be silly. You don’t have to pay me. Come down to the music room in the evenings, and I’ll show you a few things every night. I’ll lend you a book for beginners, so you can practice, but you’ll have to save your practicing for when I’m not around. I don’t need money, not now that I’ve got this job, but I need my piano time.” She slapped her palm on the table. “I need it. Sometimes, it’s all I need.”
Georgette said, “Oh, I wouldn’t never want to get in the way of your music. Anything you teach me would be a real gift. I would be so grateful to you.”
Nora’s nod was quick and brusque and designed to cut out any discussion of emotions, even gratitude. “Then I’ll expect you. Let’s head back to the dorm, and I’ll give you some things to practice.”
* * *
Justine felt uneasy waiting alone at the trolley stop. She’d stayed at the library all the way until closing time, and the after-work crowd was already home eating dinner. It wasn’t a long walk to Arlington Farms, and it was entirely possible that she could get there before the next trolley came along. Somehow, she felt safer as a moving target, so she set off walking.
Was she even a target? If she understood what she’d just learned in the library, Doris Goldberg, Mabel Hennessey, and Sandra Stone had left Arlington of their own free will. She had no idea why they might have gone to Tennessee, but women who were kidnapped did not generally have time to research the place where their kidnappers would be taking them, so any theory of kidnapping was no good. If they’d all gotten fed up with their bosses, quit their jobs, and left town, would they all go the same place? It seemed more likely that the SSA or the Army or somebody important had sent them to Tennessee, but why?
The streets were well-lit all the way back to Arlington Farms, but the light on the sidewalks grew murkier as she approached the dormitory complex. The shade trees that she loved so much in the daytime plunged Justine into the shadows.
Someone was waiting for her in those shadows.
* * *
Georgette was sitting with her fingertips on smooth piano keys, and she was happy. Excited. Nervous.
Nora had listened to her play the hymns she knew, then she’d spent an interminable amount of time getting Georgette positioned at the keyboard. She had scooted the bench forward and back, stopping between each movement to examine the angle of Georgette’s forearms. She had tapped Georgette’s shoulders time and again, reminding her to pull them back so that she wouldn’t slump. She had made sure that the soles of both Georgette’s shoes stayed flat on the floor.
Georgette couldn’t even manage to hold her head up well enough to suit Nora, who was constantly adjusting the angle of her jaw. Finally, though, her posture met Nora’s high standards and she was allowed to press down the keys and listen for a noise.
“I want you press down your fingers one at a time and nothing more. You can’t hear yourself when you’re trying to play those hymns that are too hard for you. Strike the keys and listen. That’s all. Listen.”
She did, and the sound was beautiful. Bell-like. Melodic.
Georgette wanted to stay at the piano all evening long.
* * *
A faint rustle was Justine’s only warning. Her assailant emerged from the pool of darkness at the foot of an old oak tree. If the tree hadn’t spent the autumn dropping crisp dead leaves, she would have known nothing before she felt two hands around her throat. Her assailant stood at her back, squeezing the life out of her.
Her instincts begged her to grab at the hands around her throat, but her mind said that there were better things to do with her hands. She had two of them, so she should go for two targets.
No, wait. She had also two feet, one to stand on and one to stomp with. She was going for as many targets as she could reach, and she was doing it quickly.
Justine knew that she had only seconds to defend herself against a strangler. If she lost consciousness, she was gone.
* * *
“How do I know which keys to push when I’m playing a song I don’t already know?” Georgette asked Nora, pointing to the sheet music on the piano. “And how do I know which fingers to use?”
“Never mind those things,” Nora said, picking up the sheet music and firmly folding it closed. “We’ll worry about them later.”
She rested her hand atop Georgette’s and said, “Follow my fingers. We’re going to play a C scale.” So they did, and it sounded like music, not just random notes.
“Now give me your other hand. Until we work together again, I want you to play a scale with each hand every time you pass the piano. Sit down and make sure you’re using proper posture, then play the scale and listen. Just listen.”
Georgette did. With Nora’s help, her other hand played a C scale, too, and it was lovely. The notes sounded lovely and the keys beneath her fingers felt lovely. For the rest of her life, Georgette would do her best to live with a piano and, when that wasn’t possible, she would do her best to live near a piano that somebody else would let her use.
Nora looked at her with an amused smile. “I recognize that look on your face. You’re going to practice, and you’re going to play, and you’re going to play well. I promise to teach you something new every day, if you promise to never interfere with my practice time.”
“Oh, I promise,” Georgette said, so quickly and so loudly that she embarrassed herself. She hid her blushing face by taking the music book out of Nora’s hands and opening it, hoping it would give her some clue about how pianists looked at a page full of black dots and, miraculously, knew exactly which keys to play.
This particular sheet of music was covered with so many black dots that Georgette knew that it would be a long time before she’d have the slightest chance of being able to play it, and it was likely that she never would. Raking her eyes over the page, the composer’s name caught her eye. It was Nora Moore.
“You wrote this?”
“I write a lot of stuff.”
“And somebody publishes it?”
Nora gave a rare laugh. “Not all of it, no. Nobody’s publisher is that generous. But, yes, I’ve been publishing my compositions since I was at the conservatory.”
Georgette had never felt more like an uneducated, uncultured little girl from Des Allemands, Louisiana.
“Holy mackerel,” she said, sliding off the bench. “Well, I promised I’d let you have your practice time. Maybe could you write something I might be able to play one day?”
And then she hurried away, wondering how a little girl from Des Allemands had found herself in the nation’s capital, conducting espionage and brushing elbows with honest-to-goodness music composers.
She checked her watch. It was ten past nine. She’d kept Jerry waiting for ten minutes, but surely Justine was out there keeping him company. Justine was the one who’d asked for him to come by Kansas Hall at nine, so she must be bending his ear about whatever she’d been doing with her camera. Justine hadn’t had time to say why she’d wanted to go to the library before she handed her film over to Jerry for developing, but Georgette was about to find out.
As the lobby came into view, her eyes went immediately to the spot where she and Jerry always sat, because the settee was positioned to make it easy for Jerry to park his wheelchair close enough to hold her hand. Sure enough, he was sitting there waiting for her. Alone.
As Georgette approached, the same question was on both their lips: “Where’s Justine?”
* * *
In an instant, Justine had planned her attack. Now she had to execute it.
She twisted her body to the right as far as it would go, gouging at her assailant’s eyes with the fingernails of her left hand. Her heart sank when her hand sailed through the air and she knew that she had missed.
Shifting her balance onto her left foot, she stomped the heel of her right dress shoe on her assailant’s instep. This time, she felt herself make firm, solid contact. She heard a sharp grunt, almost a groan. The pressure on her throat didn’t ease, but she hoped she’d inflicted enough pain to distract from her next move.
She used her right hand to pluck Gloria’s pencil from her updo and the left one to slide the wooden sheath off its concealed spike. With this, she could do some real damage.
Now, she twisted to the left and let the motion add power to the sweeping motion she was making with her right hand. She felt the spike make contact, but it was a glancing blow. She wasn’t able to embed the spike in her assailant’s body, but she heard fabric tear. It was entirely possible that she’d struck the flesh beneath it hard enough to draw blood, because she heard a shriek of pain and she was glad.
The hands gripping Justine’s throat loosened enough for her to draw a breath, so she’d achieved her first goal. Unfortunately, she’d failed at her second goal, which was to disable her assailant. She felt a fist strike her jaw and she went down with one of her assailant’s hands still squeezing her windpipe, but she went down fighting. She struck out with the spike and was rewarded with another grunt of pain.
Darkness was gathering around Justine, but the hand on her throat slipped away as she fell. She retained just enough awareness to make sure she didn’t land on her weapon, putting the spike through her own chest. Once on the ground, she drew her right hand beneath her chest, protecting the weapon with her body. This person might yet be able to kill her with her own weapon, but it would require lifting her torso and prying the handle from her grip.
A hard blow to the back of her head knocked that thought and all others clean out of Justine’s mind.
Chapter 23
Justine couldn’t remember why she was playing dead. She couldn’t remember why she was lying on her belly with one hand gripping…something. Was it a knife?
A memory started to stir. Had she unsheathed Gloria’s weapon-disguised-as-a-pencil? She thought maybe she had. Why?
It hurt to swallow. The pain brought back the feeling of two hands encircling her throat as someone did their best to choke her to death. Maybe this was why she was playing dead. Maybe she was trying to convince someone that they’d succeeding in killing her.
One thing was for sure. Her brain wasn’t working well. Justine judged that she should continue playing dead until she figured out what was going on.
* * *
“Are you sure she was planning to take the trolley home?”
It was a reasonable question, so Georgette resisted the urge to yell, “I don’t know!” at Jerry as they hurried outside.
“She said she was goin’ to the Columbia Pike library. I saw her get on the trolley. I don’t know how she planned to get home.”
“Then we might as well head for the trolley stop. Even if she walked home, she’d have to come right past it to get to Kansas Hall.” Jerry gave his wheels an extra hard spin. “How late is she?”
“Late enough. The library’s been closed since eight thirty. It’s well on past nine. She should be here.”
“Maybe she had to wait for a trolley. There’s no need to panic unless the next trolley comes and she’s not on it.”
The next trolley arrived as they reached the stop. She wasn’t on it. They were alone at a trolley stop surrounded by trees and a streetlight, and there wasn’t a soul in sight. Georgette gave herself permission to panic.
“Justine!” she called out. “Justine!”
She set out walking, searching along the sidewalk that would have brought Justine home if she’d chosen to travel on foot. Jerry followed her.
“Are we going all the way back to Kansas Hall, calling her name?” he asked.
“It’s the best idea I got,” Georgette said. “You got a better one?”
* * *
Justine heard her name. Then she heard it again in a lower pitch.
Two people were looking for her. What did that mean?
To the best of her memory, which was pretty damned raggedy, the person who’d tried to strangle her had been alone. Was this someone else, or had her assailant come back with reinforcements?
If so, she was doomed. However, these people were not behaving like they were trying to cover up attempted murder. They were walking down a public street bellowing her name at the top of their lungs. They were looking for her. They seemed safe enough.
She tried to call out to them, but all that came out was a soft, breathy groan.
* * *
Georgette stopped dead still on the sidewalk and Jerry had to swerve to keep from running into her. They’d been going out for a few months and he’d learned to expect Georgette to do the unexpected. Keeping this in mind had significantly cut down on the frequency of collisions.
“Did you hear that?” she asked.
“Hear what?”
She answered him by sprinting off the sidewalk, into some tall grass, and down a sharp incline. There was no way he could follow her in the chair in that terrain, and there was no way he could walk that far through all those obstacles. All he could do was wait.
A long minute passed before he heard Georgette’s voice again. “I found her. She’s alive.”
He heard her grunt, then he saw her stand, hauling Justine’s limp form to her feet. Bringing Justine’s right arm across her shoulders and wrapping her left arm around Justine’s waist, Georgette took a step forward, and Justine took a tottering step along with her. Then she took another and another. Her head lolled with each step, but she was holding it up on her own. Jerry was encouraged.
Then the two women reached the sidewalk and the dim light of the streetlights, and Jerry saw the dark smear of blood on the front of Justine’s blouse.
“I don’t think it’s her blood,” Georgette said, holding up a bloody spike. Its handle was tipped with an incongruous pencil eraser. “This is her weapon, and she’s not bleeding anywhere I can see. I think Justine did some damage to somebody with this thing. Might’ve saved her own life.” She settled Justine on the trolley stop bench and sat down beside her.
“You have a hard head,” Jerry said to Justine, checking the lump on the back of it. It was impressive, but there was no sticky blood matting her hair. “Most people would be bleeding like there was no tomorrow.”
“Think I got in a good lick.” Justine pantomimed a stabbing motion. “Not sure where. Shoulder…leg…both, maybe.”
“Do you know who did this? Man? Woman? Somebody you know?”
Justine took a deep breath. “…came up from behind. Could’ve been anybody.” She ran her fingers over the lump.
Jerry rolled his chair back a foot and sat there looking at the two women sitting on the trolley stop bench. Justine was leaning against Georgette’s shoulder, but she was coming around. Her eyes were focused. She was in control of her movements. As if aware that he was assessing her condition, she lifted her head off her friend’s shoulder and sat up straight.
“You go get the car,” Georgette said.
“What? You’ve got to be kidding me. No.”
“I can see your brain working. You’re trying to figure out what to do now. Maybe Justine could walk back to Kansas Hall. She’s got us to help her. But it would be a lot to put her through, and what will we do if she faints on us? We could put her on your lap and I could help you by pushing, but we’d attract a lot of attention that we don’t want. Speakin’ of which, we probably don’t want to take her to the emergency room, do we?”
“Well…”
“No. We don’t. Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna sit right here with her. You’re gonna go to Kansas Hall, ask to use the phone, and call what’s-his-name. You people have got to have doctors you trust, so you’re gonna tell him we need one. Then you’re gonna get in your car, pick us up, and take us to wherever the doctor is.”
Jerry didn’t like the sound of this. “No, I’ll stay with her. You go—”
“You think I’ll be safer on this dangerous sidewalk all by my lonesome self? Where somebody attacked her and left her in this condition? And then what will I do? You know I can’t drive a car.”
“I need to fix that.”
“Well, you can’t do it tonight. We’ll be fine. We’ve got our Stingers. And she seems to be pretty good with that pencil-spike-thingie.”
Jerry reached into the holster strapped to his lower leg and handed her a snubnosed .38. “Remember how to use this?”
“I do,” Georgette said. “We both do.”
Leaving those two women alone in the dark was the hardest thing Jerry had ever had to do.
As he rolled away, Georgette said, “Don’t worry, sugar. I’ve got your back. And I’ve got her.”
* * *
Justine’s head hurt and her throat hurt. The car ride had been hard, as every pothole had jostled her aching body. But none of this mattered, because Jerry was pulling the car into a driveway and Paul was there, pacing as he waited for her. He yanked her door open before the car had even stopped rolling.
