Maybe, Greer thought grimly, the explanation wasn’t good enough for Willett, and he had to find out for himself.
“Any ideas about the maps?” Barrett said.
“Quite a few. I’ll check first and tell you later.”
20
Greer returned to the main floor. There was no sign of the Goodfields in any of the front rooms but from the back of the house came a sound that Greer couldn’t identify, a loud whirring accentuated by little periods of silence. Greer followed the sound down the hall and through a swinging door into the kitchen.
Ethel was seated at a small built-in table that folded down out of a wall between two windows. On the table was a portable electric sewing machine and Ethel was bent over it with intense concentration.
The noise of the machine had covered Greer’s entrance, so he stood and watched her for a minute, surprised by her speed and efficiency. She had her long fair hair pinned back tightly out of the way, and in place of the trailing silk housecoat she’d had on in the morning, she wore a plain cotton dress with the sleeves rolled up. Greer had the impression that he was seeing Ethel for the first time without costume or disguise and without the mask of idiocy she assumed for self-protection.
“Mrs. Goodfield.”
She bent her head toward him with the alert inquisitiveness of a bird. “Oh, it’s you. Have those other men gone yet?”
“No.”
“I wish they’d go. They’re making Willett nervous. But then everything does, doesn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
She sighed. “I suppose you have to interrupt me?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been sewing. That, is, I haven’t been sewing anything in particular, just practicing up in case — well, you never know what will happen, do you. I think every wife should be prepared to go out and take a job.”
“Are you going to take a job, Mrs. Goodfield?”
“No, but it’s nice to be prepared in case worst comes to worst. So I thought I’d practice up on my sewing. I used to do a lot of sewing back home. I even made all my brother’s shirts. So I thought, if worst comes to worst—”
“Do you think it’s coming?”
She looked at him blandly, assuming the mask again. “One never knows.”
“Sometimes one has a rough idea.”
“I don’t follow you. I’m not a bit subtle. Ask Willett.”
“I intend to ask Willett quite a few things. And you, too.”
“I’ve answered a thousand questions already today. Who does everybody think I am, Einstein?”
“What I think,” Greer said, “is that you’re an accomplished liar.”
“I consider that an insult.”
“You consider it correctly. It is an insult.”
“And if I’m such a liar, why do you keep asking me questions?”
“I’m hoping you’ll change your attitude and cooperate.” Greer took the maps out of his pocket and unfolded them. “Ever see these before?”
Ethel hesitated slightly before answering. “Of course. They belong to my mother-in-law.”
“Is this her writing in the margins?”
“Whose else would it be? They’re her maps. She kept them as a souvenir of the trip, I guess.”
“What trip?”
“I told you we’ve been traveling for the past six months, Mother, Willett and I.”
“Why?”
“Why do people travel? To see things and places.”
“For enjoyment, in other words.”
“I... yes, you might call it that.”
“Was it enjoyable traveling with a bedridden invalid?”
“It was hell,” Ethel said flatly. “Just plain hell. But she wanted to travel, so we had to.”
“It couldn’t have been very pleasant for her either. Why did she insist on it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it possible that she had a very good reason for visiting these various places, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Minneapolis, and so on?”
“She never had to have a reason for doing anything. If she wanted to do it, that was enough.”
“Why did she consider it important to make these memos of dates and places? Take a specific example: Tucson, Dec. 10, Palace Hotel, Redlands Hospital. Did anything significant happen to Mrs. Goodfield in Tucson? Did she go to visit anyone, friend, relative?”
“She went into Redlands Hospital for a week for a rest and a checkup. The results of the checkup weren’t good at all. I wanted to come home but Mother refused. We went on to Colorado Springs and she entered a clinic there.”
“Why didn’t she stay in the hospital in Tucson?”
Ethel’s expression remained blank, but there was a thin, white line of anger around her mouth. “I told you, if she wanted to do something, that was enough. She never gave reasons. She didn’t have to, she was boss.”
“This checkup she had in Tucson — it showed she was gravely ill?”
“Yes.”
“And still she refused to go home?”
“She refused.”
“Is it possible,” Greer said, “that she was looking for someone?”
Ethel turned and looked out the window. “Practically anything is possible, but it doesn’t make much sense, her looking for someone all over the country in her condition. Who would she be looking for?”
“Some relative, perhaps. She was aware of her approaching death — she talked to me about it — and she may have wanted to make another will to include some relatives that she’d lost touch with.”
“She hasn’t any. We’re her relatives, Willett and Jack and Shirley and I. As for making another will, that would never have occurred to her.”
“You’re positive?”
“Of course. She had nothing to leave to anyone, not a thing.”
“I understood she was fairly well off.”
“She was once. She gave it all away to her children quite a while ago.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Ethel repeated with a dry little smile. “I guess she didn’t want any of us to sit around waiting for her to die.”
It seemed logical enough, and yet Greer had a feeling that it was not the true explanation. From what he knew and had heard of old Mrs. Goodfield, sensibility was not one of her characteristics. She was a hard woman with an iron will which she enforced on others by moral and financial pressure. Was she so sure of her moral force that she could afford to give up the advantage of financial pressure? And what kind of moral force was it that could compel free adults like Willett and Ethel to forego their own wishes and escort on a countrywide tour a woman who was gravely ill?
They were not traveling for enjoyment, Greer thought, but for a purpose.
He was certain that Ethel knew the purpose and was a part of it; equally certain that she would never tell. The maps were involved in some way. They were the connecting link between Rose and the Goodfields, and this suggested to Greer the possibility that Rose was the person Mrs. Goodfield had been searching for on her travels. But he had no evidence to support this theory; there was even evidence against it. Rose had not been in hiding. It would have been easy enough for anyone who seriously wanted to locate her to do so, either through her old studio connections, or, as Dalloway had, by a newspaper item. Why, then, should Mrs. Goodfield have been looking for Rose in Philadelphia or Minneapolis? Another and even more unanswerable question arose: if Mrs. Goodfield had wanted to find anyone, why hadn’t she hired a detective instead of undertaking the difficult task herself?
He said finally, “There’s nothing more you’d like to tell me?”