Crying Child by Barbara Michaels Page B

he wouldn’t have let them starve. They weren’t that poor. But there wasn’t any extra money, and they were too darned stiff-necked to ask him for help, not after the awful way they acted when his mother got married again. I think they were ashamed.”
    “But they left him the house,” I said.
    “Oh, sure. He was the last male Fraser. They’d have left him the house if he’d been an ax murderer. You don’t know what family tradition is till you live in New England. That’s why Ranhas all the money; it came down in a chunk from father to son. Oh, well, what I’m trying to say is that in the last few years the old ladies sold some things. Nothing Ran would even notice was missing, out of all the stuff in that house. But there were a few things I thought you might like to have back.”
    “You don’t mean,” Mary said, “that you kept the things you bought from them?”
    “I had to let most of them go,” Sue said defensively. “I just didn’t have the cash—”
    “My dear girl. I’m not complaining; I’m very touched at your kindness, and I know Ran will be too. He certainly wouldn’t allow you to suffer any financial loss for the sake of his family. They were his responsibility, not yours.”
    “Then you’ll tell him about it?”
    “Right away.”
    “Oh, there’s no hurry. He may not even want the stuff, and if he doesn’t, that’s fine. But I feel better about it now.” Sue smiled. “I guess you think I’m pretty silly, making such a big thing out of it.”
    “I certainly don’t think that.”
    “As I said, there isn’t much left. Just a couple of things I thought—”
    The shop bell jingled, and Sue looked up. A frown wrinkled her forehead.
    “Oh, Gawd,” she said under her breath. “It’sthat old—Hi, there, Mrs. Cartwright! Be right with you.”
    The customer was a stocky woman with a chest like a shelf.
    “I am in a hurry,” she said loudly. “If you don’t mind.”
    “Excuse me?” Sue said to us.
    “Go right ahead.” Mary stood up. “We’ve got to run. We’re supposed to meet Ran.”
    “Oh, darn. You’ll come back another time?”
    “Sure. And I’ll tell Ran.”
    We left Sue in the clutches of Mrs. Cartwright. As we went down the street Mary said,
    “She’s cute, isn’t she?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “I wonder what happened between her and Will.”
    “She’ll probably tell you if you know her long enough. She talks even more than I do.”
    The Inn was at the other end of the street, near the wharf. As we went toward it we passed a big white house, set back from the sidewalk, which Mary pointed out as the museum.
    “I suppose we don’t have time to go in,” I said, lingering.
    Mary took my arm firmly.
    “Not time enough for a confirmed museum hound like you. There will be other times.”
    We went on by, but the sight of the place reminded me of the enigmatic gravestone and the researches I meant to pursue. I almost said something about it to Mary. Ordinarily a mystery of that sort would have intrigued her. We would have speculated about the woman whose life had ended in such obscurity, and we would have gone through the family papers together. Mary would have loved my adventure in the graveyard; her sturdy common sense would have reduced the apparition of Annie Marks to the absurdity it was. But now…Well, I didn’t need a psychiatrist to tell me I ought to avoid morbid subjects.
    Ran was waiting for us in the bar. I wasn’t too happy about that, though the drink in front of him appeared to be untouched. I didn’t know how many he had had before that one.
    Naturally I didn’t ask. Ran was so pleased with Mary’s good spirits that he forgot to be self-conscious with me. It was pathetic to see how he looked at her, like a parent with a sick child, trying to keep from showing his anxiety but painfully conscious of every word and every gesture the child makes. I noticed, too, that he didn’t finish the drink in front of him, despite Mary’s teasing. She was