Feast of Murder(66)

Julie Anderwahl had not felt nothing following her abortion. She had not felt a crushing weight of guilt, but she had not felt nothing. She had not told anyone she was going to have it, and she had not brought anyone with her when she had gone, so she had no one to discuss it with, but after a while she worked it out. Never again. That was it. She had girlfriends who had two and three and, in one case, even four abortions, but that was something she knew she couldn’t do. She didn’t care if it was a right. She didn’t care if her life would go down the tubes and she’d have to give up her career for welfare. She didn’t care about anything. Never again.

It was because of Never Again that she was lying here in this bunk, listening to Mark bouncing around their cabin and willing herself not to vomit, feeling depressed beyond all reason at this odd mutation of Thanksgiving. Back home, Thanksgivings were not like this, pretentious and self-conscious on the surface, pinched up and mean underneath. Thanksgivings were a time for everybody’s children and eating too much food and forgetting about the fight you’d had with your cousin Andrea last spring. Julie wrapped her arms around her stomach and closed her eyes. The storm had nearly dissipated now, or they had sailed out of it, and the motion of the boat was once more gentle—but in some ways that was worse than the violent rocking and shaking had been. There was something insidious about it, oozing and sly, that got under her skin and into her throat and made her want to race for the upper deck. She restrained herself, because she knew there really wasn’t any way to race for the upper deck. It was an obstacle course of beams and ladders and ropes and candles out there. She couldn’t stand the thought of battling her way through it.

Mark was pacing back and forth at the side of her bunk, taking off his shirt, taking off his belt. He seemed more excited and happy than he had for months, and interested, too. Julie didn’t think she’d ever seen him really interested in anything before. There were things she had thought he was interested in, like work. They’d never elicited a tenth of this response from him. What did that mean?

“It was really amazing to watch him work,” Mark was saying. “It was just like an Agatha Christie novel, or Albert Finney in that movie of that Agatha Christie novel, you know, Murder on the Orient Express.”

“Don’t say that,” Julie said. “That’s the one where everybody did it together, and they had a perfect plan and got found out anyway.”

“If Charlie Shay really was murdered, I’m sure Demarkian will find whoever did it. I wasn’t just throwing Agatha Christie around because it’s a name even a moron would recognize, you know. I’ve read about Demarkian in the papers. They call him the Armenian-American Hercule Poirot.”

“Yes,” Julie said. “Yes, I know that.”

“I thought he was going to haul out a piece of paper and start making a timetable right there. Tony had the salad dressing at four oh five and two seconds. Fritzie had the salad dressing at four oh five and seven seconds. It was wonderful.”

“It was after six o’clock.”

“You know what I mean. It was just a stunning performance. God, I wish I could do something like that with my life. It’s so much more interesting than—business.”

Business. Julie had been lying flat on her back, keeping her eyes open, trying not to feel the boat move. Now she eased herself up into a sitting position and arranged her pillows as props behind her back. She had to move slowly. Every sudden movement made her feel as if she were being stabbed. Mark had stripped down to his shorts and was standing in the middle of the cabin, lost in a daydream and looking sort of soft-boiled. Julie didn’t think she’d ever noticed how unattractive his skin was.

“Mark?”

Mark came to with a start, looked around guiltily, and grabbed for his pajama top. It was navy blue and covered with little tiny dollar signs embroidered in gold thread.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am sorry. I seem to be—out of it tonight.”

“I can see that. Did he say anything in particular? About anything besides salad dressing, I mean.”

“He talked about the salad,” Mark told her. “And, of course, who was sitting next to who and who was sitting next to Charlie and all that kind of thing. It’s like I told you. It could have been right out of a—”

“Out of an Agatha Christie novel,” Julie finished for him, a little impatiently. “That’s not what I mean. I mean did he say anything about the other thing.”

“Oh,” Mark said.

“Well,” Julie said, “you have to admit it’s strange. Sick as I am, I can tell it’s strange. Donald McAdam died from strychnine. And now Charlie Shay dies from strychnine—”