“Maybe you think he fell into the well by accident, and I heard him yellin n just turned a deaf ear. Is that what you been gettin at?”
I seen by his face that that was exactly what he'd been gettin at. I also seen he was mad things weren't goin the way he'd expected em to go, the way they'd always gone before when he had these little inter-views. A tiny ball of bright red color had showed up in each of his cheeks. I was glad to see em, because I wanted him mad. A man like McAuliffe is easier to handle when he's mad, because men like him are used to keepin their composure while other people lose theirs.
“Mrs St George, it will be verra difficult to accomplish anything of value here if you keep responding to my questions with questions of your own.”
“Why, you didn't ask a question, Dr McAuliffe,” I says, poppin my eyes wide n innocent. “You told me Joe must have been yellin-”cryin out” was what you actually said-so I just ast if-, “All right, all right,” he says, and put his pipe down in Garrett's brass ashtray hard enough to make it clang. Now his eyes were blazin, and he'd grown a red stripe acrost his forehead to go along with the balls of color in his cheeks. “Did you hear him calling for help, Mrs St George?”
One, my-pretty-pony… two, my-pretty-pony
“John, I hardly think there's any call to badger the woman,” Garrett broke in, soundin more uncomfortable than ever, and damn if it didn't break that little bandbox Scotsman's concentration again. I almost laughed right out loud. It woulda been bad for me if I had, I don't doubt it, but it was a near thing, all the same.
McAuliffe whipped around and says to Garrett, “You agreed to let me handle this.”
Poor old Garrett jerked back in his chair s'fast he almost tipped it over, and I'm sure he gave himself a whiplash. “Okay, okay, no need to get hot under the collar,” he mumbles.
McAuliffe turned back to me, ready to repeat the question, but I didn't bother lettin him. By then I'd had time to count to ten, pretty near.
“No,” I says. “I didn't hear nothing but people out on the reach, tootin their boat-horns and yellin their fool heads off once they could see the eclipse had started to happen.”
He waited for me to say some more-his old trick of bein quiet and lettin people rush ahead into the puckerbrush-and the silence spun out between us. I just kep my hands folded on top of my handbag and let her spin. He looked at me and I looked back at him.
“You're gonna talk to me, woman,” his eyes said. “You're going to tell me everything I want to hear twice, if that's the way I want it.”
And my own eyes were sayin back, “No I ain't, chummy. You can sit there drillin on me with those diamond-bit baby-blues of yours until hell's a skatin rink and you won't get another word outta me unless you open your mouth n ask for it.”
We went on that way for damned near a full minute, duellin with our eyes, y'might say, and toward the end of it I could feel myself weakenin, wantin to say some thin to him, even if it was only “Didn't your Ma ever teach you it ain't polite to stare?” Then Garrett spoke up-or rather his stomach did. It let out a long goiiiinnnnggg sound.
McAuliffe looked at him, disgusted as hell, and Garrett got out his pocket-knife and started to clean under his fingernails. McAuliffe pulled a notebook from the inside pocket of his wool coat (wool! in July!), looked at somethin in it, then put it back.
“He tried to climb out,” he says at last, as casual as a man might say “I've got a lunch appointment.”
It felt like somebody'd jabbed a meatfork into my lower back, where Joe hit me with the stovelength that time, but I tried not to show it. “Oh, ayuh?” I says.
“Yes,” McAuliffe says. “The shaft of the well is lined with large stones (only he said “stanes,” Andy, like they do), and we found bluidy handprints on several of them. It appears that he gained his feet, then slowly began to make his way up, hand over hand. It must have been a Herculean effort, made despite a pain more excruciating than I can imagine.”
“I'm sorry to hear he suffered,” I said. My voice was as calm as ever-at least I think it was-but I could feel the sweat startin to break in my armpits, and I remember being scairt it'd spring out on my brow or in the little hollows of my temples where he could see it. “Poor old Joe.”
“Yes indaid,” McAuliffe says, his lighthouse eyes borin n flashin away. “Poor… auld… Joe. I think he might have actually got out on his own. He probably would have died soon after even if he had, but yes; I think he might have got out. Something prevented him from doing so, however.”
“What was it?” I ast.
“He suffered a fractured skull,” McAuliffe said. His eyes were as bright as ever, but his voice'd become as soft as a purrin cat. “We found a large rock between his legs. It was covered wi” your husband's bluid, Mrs St George. And in that bluid we found a small number of porcelain fragments. Do you know what I deduce from them?”
One… two… three.
