O' Artful Death - By Sarah Stewart Taylor Page 0,77

trying not to smile. “Actually it’s Le Morte D’Arthur, the death of Arthur.” She pronounced it carefully and Charlie copied her, almost perfectly.

“Is that what that means? Mort. Death.”

“Yes,” Sweeney said. “In French. But it’s not in French, Le Morte D’Arthur, I mean.”

They were silent for a minute.

“Have you ever read Le Morte D’Arthur?” Sweeney asked, for something to say.

“No. The librarian at school told me about it. I wanted to read a book about King Arthur, but all they had were baby books, with pictures.”

“That’s too bad. I bet you could get it at the regular library, though.”

“Yeah.” She looked up at Sweeney, suddenly accusing. “You were supposed to find out about Mary.”

“Yes. Did you know about Mary? Did your grandmother talk about her?”

Charley wandered over to the window and looked out. “I used to go down and look at her gravestone. I liked the poem. All about the man taking her on a trip.”

God, Sweeney thought, children really are masters of euphemism.

“Charley?” A tall big-hipped woman with lank hair was coming down the stairs in a nightgown and thick wool socks and when she saw Sweeney she narrowed her eyes suspiciously. She couldn’t have been more than thirty, but her face was pulled down in grief.

“I’m so sorry to barge in on you,” Sweeney said from the bottom of the stairs. “I’m Sweeney St. George and I, I think I talked to you last week. About Mary Denholm’s gravestone and then I think I talked to you the day after . . . I just wanted to say how sorry I am. I had no idea . . .” She was babbling.

“No, that’s okay,” Sherry said finally. She came down the stairs and curled up on one of the couches in the living room, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of the crack between a cushion and the side of the couch. On a table by the wall were casserole dishes filled with food, plates of brownies and a couple of pies wrapped in cellophane. One of the pies—cherry from the look of it—had a hole in the middle, as though someone had scooped out the center with a spoon.

“People keep bringing food,” she said, shaking a cigarette out of the pack and following Sweeney’s gaze. “I don’t know what to do with it.” She lit up and took a long grateful drag.

Sweeney studied Sherry’s ravaged face, her pockmarked skin red and angry, and she thought about how grieving turned people’s faces inside out, how you could see on their mouths and eyes the machinations of grief as it passed over and through their minds.

Upstairs, bedsprings creaked.

“Sherry?” called a male voice. All three of them watched as a man in boxer shorts and a white T-shirt came down the stairs. He was a good-looking guy, with dark hair cut short and muscular arms.

“That’s Sweeney St. George, Carl,” Sherry said. “Remember? She’s the one that . . .” She looked nervously at her boyfriend.

“What does she want?” Carl asked. Sweeney watched him.

“I talked to Mrs. Kimball a few days before she died. She was going to help me with a research project.”

He looked her up and down, his eyes predatory and chilly.

“You go back to bed, Carl,” Sherry said, getting up and putting a hand on his arm. “I’ll be right up.” He gave Sweeney another hard look, then turned and disappeared up the stairs.

“We’ve had all kinds of people here,” Sherry said apologetically, pushing her limp reddish hair away from her face. “Police and insurance people and reporters from the paper. Asking bullshit questions. He’s just tired of talking is all.” She took another drag on her cigarette and studied Sweeney. “So you’re the professor who was going to find out who killed Mary, huh? I’m sorry I hung up on you. Just didn’t feel like talking about it.”

“Of course. Did your mother tell you about our conversation?”

“Yeah, she said you might be able to figure out the truth about Mary being murdered and that she was going to tell you what she knew.”

Charley was sitting on the floor staring up at them with her huge brown eyes.

“Could we talk somewhere alone?” Sweeney asked Sherry, who looked down at her daughter.

“Baby, go watch TV in the kitchen, okay? Just for a minute.”

Charley nodded and did as she was told.

“I’ve uncovered some stuff about Mary Denholm’s death that makes me think she probably was killed. What did your mother say about it? I guess she told quite a few