“Anyway, according to him, he only went out with Rosejoy twice, once to dinner and another time she dragged him to Shakespeare in the Park. The way he talked, he sounded like he was bored out of his skull with Ms. Precious, so I asked him who the gal was he brought to the funeral and he said she’s his steady now, name’s Ellie. Ellie Bevans, got her address here plus the buddies’ numbers. I don’t know, Edison, but I don’t feel it. He impresses me as a swinger, and from what I hear of our Ms. Precious, I don’t figure she was.”
“Maybe not, but she managed to get herself pregnant. Did you ask him about the assault that cost her her teeth? What did he say to that?”
“He looked me straight in the eye and said no way, he never laid a hand on her. He said he’s got a temper, all right, but he’s gotta feel passionate about something before hell start swinging. That’s the word he used, passionate. To tell you the truth, Ben, I don’t think she was his type. Like I said, he’s a swinger. Want me to pay a call on this Ellie Bevans? Or will you take it?”
“You, I guess. I’ve got some other fish to fry. What color were his eyes?”
“His eyes? Oh yeah, that grey business. Web, his eyes aren’t grey, no way. They’re blue — dark blue, more like purple. They say Liz Taylor’s eyes are purple; so are Wilson’s. Like I say, I don’t figure he’s our boy. Maybe Eps?”
I shook my head. “I’ve a hunch that Ms. Florence Henderson will check out as advertised. Cornell is — I figure Fiona Precious latched onto him because he’s safe, if you know what I mean.”
“Safe?”
“On the gay side. Women like gay men; they’re usually bright and charming and no problem in the bedroom department. Fenster said Rosejoy was concerned about her mother’s attachment to Cornell. I don’t think she should have given it much worry time. Maybe Fiona didn’t know. If she didn’t, she was double naive. Wilson would have gotten the message. You figure that’s his bag, too?”
George shook his head. “No way. So now what? Who’s next?”
“Back to square one. The lab got a DNA sample of the fetus. When we connect the killer to the crime, a match will help to cinch it. But first we need another DNA to make the comparison, and we can’t get that until we’ve made some kind of a case — that’s our catch twenty-two.”
At suppertime I microwaved a Stouffer’s chicken special and opened the diary. It had been burning a hole in my pocket all day.
She’d begun it in January on New Year’s Day. She’d been to a New Year’s Eve party, she said, a party sponsored by the Fairland Historical Society. She’d gone alone — “Jeffrey hasn’t called in weeks. I guess I’m not his type, but I don’t care. I don’t think he’s my type either. I thought when I met him that he was exciting, but he’s not. He’s trying to look exciting, he manages that, but inside he’s just ignorant. And crude. My mother was right.”
She’d met some people at the party. She mentioned a man who was writing a book about old Fair-land and another man who had asked her to dance. (“He’s a really good slow dancer; slow dancing is nice.”) A husband and wife pair of ecologists were worth noting by name (“Heath and Beverly Porter, they’ve moved up here from the Miami area”) as was Eddie Armstrong, an attorney who thought H. Dietrich Fenster was “an old charlatan, I don’t know how a nice girl like you can work for that old man.”
“I told him,” she noted, “that Mr. Fenster was the kindest, most intelligent man I know, and Mr. Armstrong looked at me like I was crazy. I’m going to tell Mr. Fenster. That man shouldn’t be allowed to go around saying such things. Maybe we can sue him?”
In February she went out with the dancing man, by name Henry Davis, and had “a pleasant time, but isn’t it sad that he’s so shallow? Mr. Fenster says somewhere in this world there’s a soulmate for everyone. Maybe I should enroll in one of those computer dating clubs?”
Come March she accepted an invitation to Phantom of the Opera, coming to Orlando in April. The invitation came from one Charles Evers, who turned out to be the man writing the book about old Fairland. Seemed Charles Evers had sought out H. Dietrich for an interview, at which time Charles and Rosejoy renewed their seemingly platonic acquaintance.
I found myself yawning by the time I got to April. If the girl had been four months pregnant, she had to do something to get that way and soon, time was awastin’.
May was the month when the writing changed. All her previous entries had been open and almost childlike. In May she got real cosy and began to refer to a He in capital letters. I don’t think this particular He referred to the Almighty. He, whoever he was, ran into her at the local Publix. She was shopping in the produce department when He said He could grow watermelons twice the size of the supermarket offerings, and that claim led to a free watermelon offer, which in turn led to the delivery of “truly the biggest and tastiest watermelon I’ve ever seen. I offered to pay him, but He was insulted at the very thought, and if I wanted to repay him, I could treat him to a cup of coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts.”
A cup of coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts was the first in a series of casual meetings that culminated in dinner dates, and I thought, uh-huh, could be He’s my man. But who was He? What was his name? Why was she being so coy?
Her only hint as to why came in a rambling paragraph about past disappointments (“He said He was sorry, he swore it would never happen again.” Could that pertain to the tooth loss?) and introspective revelations: “Mother wondered why Charles Evers didn’t call, she liked him, and I said I don’t know, Mother, I guess he just doesn’t find me very interesting. I’m not ‘interesting,’ I know. I’m rather dull, actually; I’m too precise. Mother says I’m a perfectionist and perfectionists are hard to live with. I don’t think I’d be that hard to live with if I had a chance. I believe He finds me interesting. He hangs on my every word!”
I made a list of the men mentioned in Rosejoy Precious’s diary, leading off with He. Then came employer Fenster, Pastor Faversham, Jeffrey Wilson, Cornell Eps, Henry Davis, Charles Evers, dentist Edwards, and (unmentioned but possibly the watermelon connection?) Paul Reston. Just before I turned off the lights, I looked up elephants in my Bartlett’s and found George’s mother’s charming little rhyme about elephants and telephones. It came from a poem entitled “El-telephony” by Laura Elizabeth Richards, 1850–1943. If I could’ve, I would have said to Rosejoy Precious, “Now see, there’s an example — the kind of nineteenth century lady who’d think like that, that’s interesting.” Poor Ms. Precious, she would never know.
But... she thought He found her interesting. He must have found her interesting enough to take to bed, but in some men’s worlds that doesn’t mean much.
Her use of the word interesting intrigued me. She could have tried for sexy or beautiful or desirable, but all she wanted was to be interesting. Well, she’d been good to look at. And bright enough. Good manners, oh yes, well-behaved. You could take Ms. Precious anywhere. All of which must have been important to Him. And what did that tell me?
He was a conformist. Maybe a mother’s boy. And considering the effort involved, physically strong. Which set his age at a probable range of late twenties to forty, old enough to care about appearances, young enough to be able to transport a body two hundred fifty yards through a primeval forest in the dark. And there must have been a vicious side to him. She’d spoken of dental visits, but she’d never explained why, and I took it from the one reference to disappointments that he slapped her around. Maybe only once? “He swore it would never happen again.” What else had she written about ill treatment? I thumbed back to June, no, not then, July... “I think it’s the humidity that causes us to behave badly in the high heat of the year. Why, even my mother berated me this morning, and I must confess I reciprocated. I will not be ill-treated, not by anybody! I know a girl from high school who married her childhood sweetheart. We thought it so romantic. I saw her on television last week. She’s hiding out in a home for battered women. How can any woman with any self-pride get herself in such a situation? It’s pathetic! I refuse, absolutely refuse to be intimidated — by anyone!”