The Blue Death Read online

  THE BLUE DEATH

  Joan Brady was born in California and danced with the New York City Ballet in her twenties. She is the author of Theory of War, winner of the Costa/Whitbread Book of the Year Award, Death Comes for Peter Pan, longlisted for the Orange Prize, an autobiography, The Unmaking of a Dancer, and the novels, The Émigré, Bleedout and Venom. She lives in Oxford.

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2012

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Joan Brady, 2012

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Joan Brady to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

  1st Floor

  222 Gray’s Inn Road

  London WC1X 8HB

  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Hardback ISBN: 978-1-84983-904-4

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-85720-431-8

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-85720-433-2

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset by M Rules

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  For Lynda

  who knows how to fight

  Contents

  1. MISSISSIPPI RIVER: The first day in June

  2. SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS: The same day, towards evening

  3. SPRINGFIELD: A heartbeat later

  4. GILEAD, ILLINOIS: The next day

  5. SPRINGFIELD: Monday after the reception

  6. TAZEWELL COUNTY, ILLINOIS: Friday of that week

  7. SPRINGFIELD & KNOX COUNTY, ILLINOIS: Sunday

  8. SPRINGFIELD: Lunchtime the same day

  9. SPRINGFIELD: Monday, a week later

  10. SPRINGFIELD: Ten days later, the last Thursday in June

  11. KNOX COUNTY, ILLINOIS: The same day

  12. SPRINGFIELD: The next day

  13. SPRINGFIELD: The first Monday in July

  14. THE CHAIN OF ROCKS, MISSOURI: That night

  15. ST LOUIS, MISSOURI: The next day

  16. KNOX COUNTY: A week later

  17. SANGAMON COUNTY, NORTH OF SPRINGFIELD: The last night in July and the first few hours of August

  18. SPRINGFIELD: The first morning in August

  19. SPRINGFIELD: Tuesday

  20. SPRINGFIELD: The following weekend

  21. SPRINGFIELD: The next morning

  22. KNOX COUNTY, ILLINOIS: The next afternoon

  23. SPRINGFIELD: The same afternoon

  24. LEADWOOD, ILLINOIS: Two days later

  25. SPRINGFIELD & CHICAGO: The third Monday in August

  26. SPRINGFIELD: Thursday

  27. TIPTON COUNTY, TENNESSEE: The same time

  28. SPRINGFIELD, MARION & KNOX COUNTY, ILLINOIS: The same time

  29. SPRINGFIELD: After the council meeting

  30. ST LOUIS: Saturday

  31. SPRINGFIELD: The first day in September

  32. SPRINGFIELD: The same time

  33. KNOX COUNTY, ILLINOIS: Labor Day

  34. SPRINGFIELD: The first half of September

  35. SANGAMON COUNTY, NORTH OF SPRINGFIELD: Wednesday

  36. SPRINGFIELD: Thursday

  37. SPRINGFIELD: Saturday

  38. SPRINGFIELD: Sunday

  39. SPRINGFIELD: Monday

  40. SPRINGFIELD: Tuesday, the day of the Referendum

  41. KNOX COUNTY: Wednesday

  42. BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS: Later that day

  43. TIPTON COUNTY, TENNESSEE: Thursday morning

  44. SPRINGFIELD: Thursday noon

  45. SPRINGFIELD: Friday and Saturday

  46. CHAMPAIGN-URBANA: Sunday morning

  47. SPRINGFIELD: The first ten days of October

  48. SPRINGFIELD: Friday

  49. LONDON, ILLINOIS: That evening

  50. GARY, INDIANA: The next morning

  51. CAWKERVILLE, ILLINOIS: That afternoon

  52. CHAMPAIGN-URBANA: Tuesday

  53. SPRINGFIELD & ST LOUIS: Wednesday

  54. Springfield: The same day

  55. SPRINGFIELD: Thursday morning

  56. SPRINGFIELD: The same day lunchtime

  57. SPRINGFIELD: Eight o’clock Friday morning

  58. CHAMPAIGN-URBANA: Same day, same time

  59. SPRINGFIELD: Same morning

  60. SPRINGFIELD: The early hours of Saturday

  61. SPRINGFIELD: A few minutes later

  62. ST LOUIS: Late November

  63. SPRINGFIELD: March

  1

  MISSISSIPPI RIVER: The first day in June

  ‘David.’ She didn’t get up. She didn’t turn.

  ‘You expecting somebody else?’

  ‘I’d know your step anywhere. Are you in your tux?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She sat cross-legged on the ground facing the Mississippi. Water disappeared over the horizon in front of her and off to either side: an ocean with a southerly current. ‘Hello, my love.’

  David Marion studied her back for a moment. Brown hair. Blonde streaks in it. Expensive.

  He walked up behind her, crouched, pulled her body against his, let her nestle there a moment, then slipped his hands up under her ears. Meadowlarks make a haunting, liquid sound, unknown outside the prairies; he could hear one in the distance. As for the word carotid, it comes from the Greek for ‘deep sleep’. An ancient, largely painless method: abrupt pressure on the arteries in the neck. Even her cry was muffled; she sagged forward in his arms.

  Usually the earth around here is so boggy that getting to the river itself takes a pier; the earliest summer – and already the driest one – in Midwest history had changed all that. Earth throughout Illinois baked and cracked. Trees dried into blackened skeletons. Dust devils swirled along roads. He couldn’t have buried her if he wanted to. The joke of it was that she’d chosen the spot herself. Nothing daunts the Mississippi, and coroners along stretches of its route get a fee per body. If the coroner at Hannibal fished her out first, he’d pronounce her dead by drowning, stick her back in the river and telephone the coroner downstream at Gilead that she was on the way. Aloysia Gonzaga, named for a saint, had prided herself on her unpredictable life. She might make it all the way to the Gulf of Mexico before anybody realized she was missing.

  Only the last few yards to the river were the usual bog. He sank into mud up to his ankles, carried her out into the water until he could feel an undercurrent, held her head under until she stopped breathing, let her go.

  After a drought like this, the first rain smells of vomit. Big drops began to fall as he sloshed his way back through the mud. By the time he reached his car, water bucketed out of the sky.

  The weather forecast had used the word ‘monsoon’. Illinois doesn’t have monsoons.

  2

  SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS: The same day, towards evening

  Mayor Jimmy Zemanski twirled his half-moon glasses in front of the mirror. He put them on his nose and peered over them. Which looked better? On his nose? Off it? The question was serious. A mayor should carry his mantle easily. Victory celebrations are an ecstasy, but they don’t last. The honeymoon period is over all too soon. Less than six months in, and the Journal-Register was whining that he hadn’t completed the water utility’s $20 milli
on automated control room. What was the matter with people? How could he possibly be responsible for delays in electronic supplies?

  The time had come to tell the elite of Springfield that more important changes were on the way. It was going to be a delicate job, one that called for careful handling. He’d thought hard before choosing tonight’s reception. He’d laid some groundwork, recruited a couple of allies. Everybody who was anybody in town would be there, an exclusive crowd that included the Governor of the state and the President of the University of Illinois at Springfield. The Journal-Register would certainly cover the event. The Chicago Tribune just might send a journalist.

  Jimmy practised what he was going to say as he combed his hair. His cowlick gave him a boyish innocence even though he was pushing fifty, and he’d been born with the sensual quality all good politicians have, an animal warmth, an ease of movement. He’d grown in stature since the election too. He was aware of that himself, pleased if a little surprised by it.

  Rain battered the windows of his lakeside house. The long-term forecast had warned of severe storms throughout the summer, and the wind increased as he eased his Daimler out of the garage; it whipped leaves off trees all the way along Lake Shore Drive. His windshield wipers were struggling so hard that he had to creep through Leland Grove towards Vinegar Hill; he could hardly see the houses that got bigger and bigger until they ended at the iron gates of the Freyl property.

  Springfield is the capital of Illinois, two hundred miles south of Chicago, right in the heart of the corn belt; and Freyls had ruled the town for generations. When Abraham Lincoln became President, great-great-grandfather Freyl had gone into business with Lincoln’s old law partner, made money fast, started buying up property all over Illinois. He’d kept Springfield’s prime site for himself; beyond the gates, a road wound nearly a quarter of a mile through woods and dense overhang, then opened out at Freyl House. Today’s head of the family was Atlanta born and bred; she’d designed this Midwest mansion as though to dominate a long-forgotten South of cotton fields and mint juleps. A first floor balcony ran all around it. Two-storey-high columns rose up to a pure copper roof. Arched and many-paned windows looked out on lawns and flowers.

  Cars packed the stone forecourt. Jimmy left the Daimler at the rear of the building and dashed to the cover of the veranda, his raincoat over his head. Even so, he was dripping wet when he rang the bell beside the panelled double doors.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Mayor.’ The woman who opened both doors to him wore the uniform of the Maid for You professional service. The rumble of conversation from the living room meant there had to be well over a hundred people in there already.

  ‘Hi . uh’ – Jimmy leaned over to read her name tag before turning a smile on her – ‘Billy-Jo. Where’d all this rain come from?’

  She smiled back, reaching out to take his coat. ‘We can certainly use it, sir.’

  ‘Can’t I put this coat somewhere myself? It’s awful wet.’

  She smiled again and took the coat from him.

  ‘Jimmy!’ Donna Stevenson cried, rushing out from the crowded room beyond. ‘There you are!’ She hugged him, kissed his cheek, hugged him again. Even on the least exciting of days, Donna looked like she’d got a finger stuck in a light socket, eyes wide, hair spiky, cheeks flushed. ‘I had such a good time Friday.’

  ‘Me too,’ Jimmy said.

  ‘Did you really?’

  He touched her cheek. ‘Let’s go somewhere quiet when all this is over.’

  ‘Let’s go now, Jimmy. Right now. Right this very minute.’

  He laughed. ‘The dowager first.’

  Donna and Jimmy had met a decade ago when he joined the Freyl law firm; she’d just got a job teaching English at the university to pay the bills while she wrote her novel. They’d both been new to town, loved it, made each other laugh, moved in together, worked on her magnum opus together – he gave it the title Faith Like a Jackal – talked about getting married. Helen Freyl, heir to the great fortune, stopped everything cold. That summer she’d graduated from Vassar and come home for the holidays. Jimmy took one look and acted as though he’d been hit by a truck. Donna suffered, married a broker instead, divorced him, thought about going after Jimmy again, decided she didn’t really want him any more.

  Now Helen had gone and married somebody else. This reception was to celebrate the marriage, and Donna found herself quite enjoying Jimmy’s misery. She wasn’t one to waste an opportunity either. When he’d suggested they meet at the St Nicholas Hotel last Friday, she’d agreed happily, let him buy her dinner, spent the night with him basking in his warmth as she had all those years ago – but at a comfortable distance, emotionally speaking. They hadn’t talked much about the marriage. Too painful for Jimmy. Not that she thought it was a good idea herself. Nobody did.

  But only old Mrs Freyl, the ‘dowager’ and Helen’s grandmother, hated the whole idea as much as Jimmy did, and it had become close to a blood bond between them. The groom was not suitable. Not suitable at all. Becky had despised him from the moment she first laid eyes on him; everybody knew that. Even so, this was a town where appearances mattered. The general consensus made it imperative to present him on society pages as a new member of the family. From now on, deference would be his due, whether he deserved it or not.

  In the marble foyer of Freyl House Donna took Jimmy’s arm and led him through French doors into the crowded living room.

  High ceilings and deep carpets imposed a sense of calm despite the crush of people. Tall, narrow windows made the storm outside seem like mere backdrop for brightly coloured dresses, glistening jewellery, black ties. Noise levels rose and fell amidst bursts of laughter as the two of them shook hands with young Mrs Leaplevine (who owned a stable of horses), paid obeisance to Deacon Banning of the First Presbyterian Church (where Lincoln worshipped a century and a half ago), moaned about the weather with the English MP (on a tour of British investments in the Midwest).

  It took them a good ten minutes to reach the fireplace where old Mrs Freyl sat in a motorized wheelchair, a couple of people in attendance beside her, a young man at her feet. Rebecca Freyl, Becky to her friends, was at least eighty years old. Even so, a young man at her feet didn’t seem incongruous; wheelchair or not, Becky had the grace and confidence that beautiful people never lose no matter how old or feeble they get.

  ‘Hey, what’s this with the chair?’ Jimmy said to her. He leaned sideways to examine the contraption. It had six wheels and a control panel that belonged on a jet airplane. Becky had been walking only weeks ago when he last saw her.

  She looked up at him. ‘I’m tired, Jimmy.’ Her Atlanta background showed in her voice, long vowels, that soft lilt. What the Southern accent didn’t hint at was the iron in Becky’s soul; her friends had marvelled at it for years. Who else would have the guts to throw a huge reception for a marriage everybody knew represented a slap in the face?

  Jimmy bent down and kissed her cheek. ‘Not easy,’ he whispered in her ear.

  ‘I’m gratified that you’re here.’

  ‘I can’t say it’s any real pleasure.’

  ‘I’m all too aware of that, Jimmy.’ His adoration of Helen had developed into a town joke. She turned to Donna; this time she smiled. ‘You too, Donna. I’m very grateful.’

  ‘I wish I were as brave as you,’ Donna said.

  ‘No, you don’t.’ Becky didn’t bother to dilute the acid in her response. ‘Not even God approves this dreadful union.’

  Jimmy chuckled. ‘Since when have you been taking note of what He thought?’

  ‘The registry office!’ Becky shot back. ‘No Freyl has ever married in the registry office. I don’t even know where it is.’

  ‘It’s in the—’

  ‘I don’t want to know, Jimmy. We haven’t had weather like this in the history of the county. Doesn’t that sound like a comment from the Almighty?’

  Jimmy chuckled again. ‘At least it’s a new theory for global warming.’

&nbs
p; Spring doesn’t usually bother with the Midwest, but most years have a couple of days that might pass for it. This year, summer had started in March, dried up whole rivers, sucked the moisture out of the ground, turned hundreds of acres of prime Illinois farmland into something all too close to desert. Reservoirs and water tables dropped to record levels. There’d been talk of water rationing for weeks.

  Less than two hours ago, skies throughout the state had opened up and started dumping all that water back to the ground at once.

  ‘I really don’t get the wheelchair,’ Jimmy said as he and Donna left Becky to seek out the guests of honour.

  ‘She took to it the day Helen told her about getting married.’

  ‘Yeah. Sure. That’s what you said. But a wheelchair. Jesus. Seems to me this thing’s really addled her brain.’

  At the St Nicholas last Friday, over dinner and in bed after that, he’d nudged Donna – gently, he’d thought – towards Becky’s weaknesses. He didn’t need her to tell him what a body blow this marriage had to be, but he hadn’t realized how much tonight’s celebration was taking out of the old woman. Mainly, though, he’d been looking for confirmation of the standard old person’s fear that intellect is failing. Donna was one of Becky’s inner circle; she assured him the fear was there, and he’d heaved a sigh of relief. He could work with fear, especially with a conjunction of fears. Becky herself had taught him how. Now he even had a wheelchair thrown in. He needed Becky on his side no matter how dirty he had to fight to get her there.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if this marriage finished her off,’ he went on to Donna as the two of them pressed back into the crowd.

  ‘Oh, come on, she’ll eat the man alive before the year is out. What I don’t get is how can Helen bear him. I mean, really. How can she?’

  The room was so full of people and so noisy that Donna had to shout, and it was Helen Freyl – the bride herself – who answered the question. ‘You never did know how to keep your mouth shut, Donna,’ she said.

  Donna swung around. ‘Oh, God, Helen, I’m so sorry.’ She flushed. She put her hand over her mouth. ‘You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that. Don’t pay any attention to me. Where is the lucky guy anyhow?’