Master Butchers Singing Club Read online

  He touched her hair, even dared tug it gently, and moved closer. She moved right next to him and sat in the curve of his arm. They were resting against the base of the pine, and had to be careful always to leave before it got dark, so that they could pick sap and pine needles off each other’s back. He turned his face to hers. She closed her eyes like an obedient child, opened them when he finally drew his mouth away from hers. She licked her lips, looked at him mockingly, then thrust her hand right between the buttons of his shirt and up the side of his chest, scratching her nails lightly along each rib. Mazarine had simple rules. Franz was allowed only to do the precise things she permitted. She, on the other hand, could do anything she wanted to him, provided he stayed still and didn’t grab for her. And that, Franz found, was very difficult when what she did became unbearable.

  SHERIFF HOCK WORKED late into the evening, by the intense light of a green-shaded banker’s lamp, putting his files in order. Most all of the crimes he dealt with were petty, small thefts or disorderly conduct, saloon troubles or domestic fights, or so large as to fall beyond his influence. Of the latter category, which included acts of God and automobile accidents, he dreaded most presiding at farm auctions and foreclosures. Even though Governor Langer had ordered the banks to cease, Zumbrugge managed one or two every year, and it was the sheriff’s job to keep the peace at the event. Sheriff Hock had been approached several times in regard to auctions that would have stripped Roy Watzka of his farmstead. Yet each time the bank came near to foreclosing, Roy would at the last minute come up with the money on his loan—no one had any idea where the money came from. But he would pay the money and then drink until the next payment was due, at which time the entire process would repeat itself.

  For the first time in many years, Roy had paid the bank on time. Sheriff Hock stared at the brown cardboard file in the pool of light. Surely, he thought, Roy’s prompt fiscal responsibility had to do with Delphine’s return. He wanted very much to close the case, to name the incident a terrible mistake—after all, the wake had been disorganized and people did get locked in cellars. But then there was the strangeness of it, the horror of the death. The weird glue of peach juice and ornamental beads and dog crap. The damn beads. Clarisse! He passed his hands across his face, recalling the old humiliation and Delphine’s contempt for his pain. Helpless before the memory, he cringed in his chair and diverted his thoughts. But they all led back to Clarisse. He thought of her all the time, even when he wasn’t thinking of her. She was the background to his every minute, everything he did. His best method of evading her was to imagine himself locking her in a closet. Stuffing her in. Tenderly kissing her. Turning the key. It always took her hours to get out and while she was struggling he could focus on other concerns.

  There was the odd fact of Roy’s deafness to the noises underneath his house. Sheriff Hock wished that he could feel the certainty that some in town, anyway, felt about the guilt of Roy Watzka. But he had the sense that Roy was honest, if soused half the time, and basically as harmless as his daughter insisted. Sheriff Hock was, he liked to say, a man of instinct, and his gut feeling was that something was missing, some information. He wasn’t at all certain that this information had to do with Roy, and yet he saw before him, in another unclosed file, a chance to set a certain event into motion that might shake loose a fact or two. From that file, he smoothed a document which he read over slowly, nodding at the words. Deciding, he slapped his hand on the paper. Then he folded it neatly and lifted it to his front pocket. The paper crackled as he turned off the lamp.

  IT WAS A BRISK gold afternoon and leaves were swirling through the air when Sheriff Hock arrested Roy Watzka for the theft of the morphine. Although the theft was way back when and Fidelis had immediately gone to the sheriff, just afterward, and explained the entire situation, Hock behaved as though he’d just begun the investigation. Fidelis had been paying Sal Birdy a little each month for the medicine, and Sal had easily accepted that. Nevertheless, Sheriff Hock made the arrest. Roy went along peacefully and seemed resigned to his jailing. He went to the cell he’d often inhabited before, only then he’d been immune to his surroundings, drunk and snoring, and hadn’t cared about the tattered blanket or the stained walls or the faintly reeking piss bucket. He walked in, as usual, closed the door behind him. This time, things were different. As a sober man, Roy had become surprisingly finicky. The first thing he did, to the amazement of Sheriff Hock, was request a certain pine-scented ammonia he’d used to make the chicken house habitable, along with a mop and bucket, water, a brush and rags. He stuffed the old blanket through the bars and tried to pound the bugs out of the mattress. And all without even asking whether his plight was yet known to his daughter. Sheriff Hock took it upon himself to go to Waldvogel’s and inform her, but first he made certain preparations to ensure that he could spy on her actions following his news.

  The moment Sheriff Hock walked into the shop, Delphine knew with a sick clarity that Roy was in trouble. She knew all of the good and calm times she’d feared too good to last had been indeed too good to last. They were over. The news would be humiliating, because of course Tante was in the shop, too, talking to Fidelis just around the corner. Delphine prayed their conversation would turn into a long involved argument, that they wouldn’t step into the shop. Of course, if they shut up, they could hear everything from right where they were.

  What Sheriff Hock had to say would not be good because he wore his stage manner. He couldn’t help play the part, Deliverer of Bad Tidings. The drama on his face was heavy as stage makeup. Delphine had that disengaged feeling, the same she’d had when confronting Tante with the needle, that she was playing a part, too, and that she knew all he would say and all that she would say, that this moment had been rehearsed since the beginning of time.

  Just as the sheriff opened his mouth, the voices on the other side of the door ceased, so of course Tante heard what the sheriff said. It would be repeated all through the town in minutes.

  “I’ve arrested your father.”

  “I want to see him.” Delphine’s voice was very calm. Wearily, she blocked herself from imagining the gloating shock that had just appeared on Tante’s face. She asked the amount of bail and Sheriff Hock told her that would be determined by the town judge, Roland Zumbrugge, brother of Chester, and that she was free to pay it and get him out, although, he also said, Roy was settling in very well.

  “Oh, I’m sure he’s perfectly at home there,” said Delphine, her voice twisting with as much sarcasm as she could muster. Then her part called for sincerity, and she gazed into the cushion-cheeked but sharp-nosed face of the sheriff. “You know he didn’t do it,” she suddenly blurted. “He’s a harmless person.”

  At once, the sheriff’s face became slightly more watchful. As he’d hoped, Delphine had just assumed the charge was related to the three dead in her father’s cellar, and now Sheriff Hock cautiously hedged, in case she should make some slip in her state of false assumption, some small mistake that would afford him more information. “Nobody, in my experience,” said the sheriff, “is completely harmless when drunk. It would probably be best to find a good lawyer.”

  “And where,” asked Delphine, now bitter, “am I to find the money to pay a good lawyer?”

  Sheriff Hock’s girlish smile pursed, then twitched, and again his eyes got that twinkle in them that Delphine thought very menacing in an officer of the law.

  “Our friend Cyprian could probably raise a little extra money on his trips up north,” the sheriff suggested.

  Delphine wished an immediate stroke of deafness on Tante’s flaring ears and maintained a blank expression with great difficulty. Inside, her heart surged; she turned her face aside as though mystified by Hock’s reference. “I have no idea what you’re referring to,” she coldly said. After that, there were no lines to follow, no script at all. So she quickly returned to familiar ground.

  “When can I visit my father?”

  “Any time.”

  She k
ept herself from automatically saying thank you, turned on her heel, and slapped her apron on the counter in order to alert Tante and Fidelis, the eavesdroppers.

  “You heard it,” she said to Tante as she passed, “shut your damn mouth.”

  Tante remade her delighted indignation into a pout of false distress. Fidelis had already removed himself and followed Sheriff Hock. Maybe he can find something out, thought Delphine. Out the back door, in the cold and brilliant sun, Delphine breathed hard and went over the exchange. Her mind kept sticking on the part about the evidence. What evidence? Where did it come from? Whom? If they had enough to haul Roy in, there had to be a witness, or at least a set of circumstantial facts that would be set out before a judge. Panicked, she went to find Clarisse.

  DELPHINE ENTERED the basement mortuary and Clarisse, at the sink, turned with a perfectly glowing look and said, “I’m so glad you’re here!”

  When her work was successful, Clarisse was vivid with satisfaction, sparklingly fresh and alive. Her skin was satiny, pure white, not a freckle on it. Her lips were a deep unlipsticked red and her eyes transparent with delight at her friend’s visit.

  “I’ve got to talk to you again,” said Delphine.

  With a dancer’s flourish, Clarisse indicated her work area.

  “I’ve got to show you someone!”

  “Not now, Clarisse. Sometimes you get carried away,” said Delphine.

  “This is the last view these parents will have of their child,” Clarisse answered, her face serious. “Is that carried away? Perhaps, well, I’ll tone down my manner, of course. I was just—”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m overwrought, Clarisse. Roy’s in the jailhouse.”

  “It’s that damn Hock,” said Clarisse. She shook her curls a little and handed Delphine a cup of freshly brewed coffee. “Although, come to think, you must admit, it was his cellar. And he was very drunk that night, well . . .” She fluffed the hair out around her ears and shook her head, conveying sympathy without implicating herself. “I didn’t see a thing. I wish I had. Oh, look at you. You must get more rest! You’ve got dark circles under your eyes.” She took Delphine’s hand in her own, just the way they used to when they were girls together talking earnestly down by the river. “Don’t worry,” she said, “we’ll think of a way to get Roy out.”

  Delphine nearly shook her hand away.

  “You do think he did it! He’s a souse, but he wouldn’t deliberately do anything that cruel. You know he’s been strictly on the wagon—”

  “But when has he ever not fallen off and disappointed you?” asked Clarisse gently.

  “Never,” Delphine said.

  Clarisse looked at her solemnly, put her fingers up, and pinched her lips shut.

  “I know what you’re trying not to say,” said Delphine.

  Clarisse nodded. Then she unpinched her lips.

  “I will say this, Delphine, you should get out of here. Just leave him be and go to secretary school. Be an actress. Anything. Take a train to the Cities.”

  Delphine laughed. “With what money? And by the way,” she lowered her voice, “I buried your dress in the iris patch.”

  Clarisse now looked very grave and thanked her for hiding it. “You’re on my side,” she said. “You’ve always been on my side.”

  “Of course I am,” Delphine said. “I just wish I knew.”

  “What?”

  “Who locked them down there.”

  “You just have to believe it wasn’t Roy, don’t you?” said Clarisse.

  Delphine nodded.

  “Then it wasn’t him,” Clarisse said. Reaching over, she put her arms around Delphine and held her head to her shoulder. Delphine’s breath ballooned up in her until she sighed. She let herself sag against her friend. Clarisse smelled of formalin and bath powder. There was coffee on her breath and blood on her shoe. From time to time, Delphine thought, life fooled her into thinking there was someone on earth she would be as close to as Clarisse. Then the person was hauled away, or died, or retreated, and it was just the two of them again. Odd women out. Unique girls. Strange.

  HIDING A MAN of his bulk was extremely difficult, but Sheriff Hock was used to assuming the disguises of the stage. His automobile would have been too conspicuous in the empty town streets, so he had borrowed a shabby buggy from a deputy’s barn and commandeered a tired old horse to draw it. Shortly after leaving the shop, he put on a farm hat and a torn canvas coat. He then drove the buggy to a safe distance for surveillance, pulled to the side of the road to let the horse crop grass, and put his head down on his chest. From there, it was an easy matter. Following Delphine was simple—in the strictly platted town he could easily project her destination, and with no trouble keep her in sight down the wide dusty avenues and streets. The funeral home was no surprise to him. He thought of Clarisse in the tight, red, fabulously shiny stage dress. Was there some way to bring her back into the picture? Closer, so she would see what kind of man he really was? He put his hand to his cheek as if he could still feel the lump she had raised when she slugged him at her father’s rowdy wake. She was much too fierce for anyone else in this town, he thought. He was the only man who wasn’t afraid of her. He deserved her. And he was getting tired of the way she evaded him and put him off. Her excuses and protestations. If she would only, only, surrender her hard little nut of a heart! Let the shell crack! Reveal the love! He was positive it was there. It made him so angry with her. She was stubborn, wasting precious time. Youth was fleeting. They should be walking along the weedy riverbank and planning their future. Sheriff Hock set his teeth and felt his face harden. When this wave of frustration engulfed him, he wanted to shake her until she woke up, to yell into her face until he broke her composure, to crush her until she cried out his name in a pain that sounded like passion.

  DELPHINE WAS ALLOWED to sit upon a small rickety caned chair just outside the bars of her father’s cell. He was morose, “but at least it’s clean, now,” he said, nicking his frowzy head at the newly scrubbed floors, walls, and the bed, which was now outfitted in sheets that Delphine brought. Apple Newhall fixed the prisoners’ meals, and the contents varied according to her feeling for the prisoner. Roy was a favorite of hers, and for dinner he was given a plate of beans baked in tomato sauce, a large beer sausage, and half a sweet onion. Delphine watched him eat. Roy’s rough claw dipped the dark syrup from the beans. He chewed tentatively because of his frail old teeth. From time to time he stopped and sighed in the drama of his entrapment. He missed the picture of Minnie, his small personal shrine, and he dearly wished for the afghan he said that she had knitted, which Delphine had rescued from the grand stink and soaked clean in the river. It had become something of a security blanket to him ever since he’d sobered up. Why now, thought Delphine. Why now that he’s sober and thoughtful, and living as a good man, does he get in the worst trouble of his life? Perhaps she forgave too easily, or perhaps she wasn’t really able to recall, out of self-protection, what a failure of a father he really had been all along. She hated this pity that overwhelmed her and covered him. His failing physical state twisted her heart—she didn’t want to see how his hands shook, how he shuffled instead of stepped, how thoroughly the booze had unstrung him over the years.

  She held one of his beat-up paws, “Dad, you didn’t do it, I know. You’ll soon be out. I’ll get a lawyer.”

  “What lawyer?” Roy peered at her with an incredulous frown. “Of course I did it . . . everybody knows, they saw me. I had to.”

  For a panicked moment Delphine hushed him. Sheriff Hock was standing near and now, having heard every word, he had stepped up behind her with a lightness surprising in a man so large. He was listening, Delphine suddenly knew it, to see if his trap would spring, listening to hear her next words, which she drew cautiously from a neutral store. “So Fidelis has offered to pay your bail, if there is—”

  “Fidelis told Albert here what happened right off! Eva had to have the stuff and you can bet I was going to get it
for her. I cared for that woman, she was a good and a kind person,” said Roy with great emotion. “Made a thick sandwich for a man and understood my thirst.”

  At the mention of Eva’s name, Delphine’s picture radically shifted, and with some difficulty she responded to the changed scenario. She stumbled a bit, though, her brain connecting with the stolen morphine, before she turned to Sheriff Hock. “How come now?” she said, masking her relief with indignation. “If you were going to charge him, why didn’t you pick him up right after?”

  Sheriff Hock, subtly disappointed, rocked back on his heels and lied that before he could get word to Sal Birdy, the drugstore owner had reported the theft to the state commission. Mr. Birdy very much regretted having done so, but now, to everyone’s annoyance, the commission had demanded a full investigation of the occurrence. Roy’s arrest was carried out to satisfy the record, and he’d be free as soon as all of the paperwork was finished.

  “This is only a formality,” Sheriff Hock concluded, and walked off in an air of slight embarrassment.

  “A formality!” Delphine’s voice let go—she tried not to sound too relieved, attempted the appropriate indignation. But she wanted to sink her face in her hands and breathe very deeply. Wanted to shed the low hysteria she’d felt at the prospects and plans that had whirled in her head—the lawyer, the trial, the jury, the judge . . . all of the implications of a murder charge. Now, she had only to sit still. So Delphine stayed with Roy for a while longer, listened to instructions regarding the various personalities and proclivities of his chickens. “I’ve got a Romeo and Juliet in the bunch,” he said. “Star-crossed banties. Don’t disturb the two black rosecombs that perch together. As for that loud dominicker, you can stew him for all I care. Let the little guy take over with the big reds. He can do the job.” Roy kept talking, clearly did not want to quit, didn’t want to face the moment when Delphine had to get up and leave him alone in the place where so often he’d slept unconscious but that he now, fully aware, occupied in a virgin state of shame.