The Merriweather File

by Lionel White

  But I needed only to look into those great lustrous eyes, staring unblinkingly into my own, to realize that she was absolutely sincere.

  “Ann,” I said, “Ann, in the name of God, what are you saymg? What do you mean—someone is trying to kill you? Certainly—”

  ‘Perhaps, Howard,” she said, “you had better let me

  explain.”

  “Good Lord, please do.”

  She wasn’t the slightest bit excited or overwrought as she talked. There was no note of hysteria.

  I have thought a long time—several days—before com-lng to see you,” she said. “Before I start, however, I want

  to ask you to promise me one thing. I don’t want you to tell Charles about this. I don’t want him to be worried or upset. That is the reason I haven’t mentioned anything to him in the first place—the reason I have come to see you. It’s also why I haven’t talked with the police. They would either laugh it off, or else make a big thing out of it and poor Charles would start tearing his hair. Lord knows, when Billy died, he went through enough.”

  Her voice seemed to break as she said the last few words and I could see the beginning of a tear forming.

  “Ann,” I said. “Listen, Ann, I want to hear everything you have to tell me, but take your time and be just as calm as you can.”

  She nodded.

  I dug out a pack of cigarettes and lighted one for her and then I listened.

  “It was four or five days ago,” she said, “when it happened. Last Tuesday. Charles was away. He had left Monday morning for his usual five-day circuit of the New England territory. In any case, Tuesday was a normal day. I shopped in the morning, after giving the house a quick going over. In the afternoon I played bridge at the country club. That’s the day a few of us girls get together. You remember, Laura used to—”

  She hesitated as she saw the sudden expression of hurt in my eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to remind you of—”

  I brushed it aside.

  “That’s all right, Ann. Quite all right. I’ve learned to live with it.”

  “Anyway,” she hurried on, “I played in the usual Tuesday afternoon bridge session. I think I lost four dollars and some-odd cents,” she said, sort of half laughing and looking just the slightest bit guilty. It made her face terribly attractive, like that of a little girl who is confessing some completely insignificant and minor misdemeanor.

  “Well, I left the club around five-thirty. Instead of going directly home and eating alone, which I hate to do when Charles is away on one of his trips, I drove over to Garden City and had dinner in the dining room of the Garden City Hotel. I came back to Fairlawn around nine o’clock. I put the car away in the garage—I was driving the convertible because Charles always takes the sedan when he goes on trips, as you probably know—and then I went into the house and sat up in the den for perhaps an hour or an hour and a half and watched television.

  “I was in bed by eleven at the latest. I had very carefully checked the front door to see that it was locked, although the Lord knows I’m never nervous alone out in Fairlawn. As a matter of fact, I looked across the back fence from our bedroom and saw that the lights were still on in your house.”

  I nodded. I remembered. I had been up late, checking over some briefs.

  “I must have fallen asleep almost at once. I usually sleep very soundly. But for some reason, sometime in the early hours of the morning, I woke up. I can’t tell you why—I just woke up. And I had the strangest feeling. A feeling mat something was wrong. I know it sounds silly—sounds as though now, afterward, after what took place, I am imagining that I had that feeling, the odd sense of worry, but I can assure you, Howard, that it was so. Otherwise, I would never have done what I did.”

  I nodded, encouraging her to continue.

  “And what did you do?”

  “Well, after what must have been ten or fifteen minutes, I turned on the night light. By this time I was positive that something was wrong. And by then I was fully awake. I was looking over at the clock on the night table when it came to me. It was gas. I was smelling the odor of gas.

  Again I nodded.

  “And....”

  “The first thing that entered my mind was that I must have gone to bed and left one of the burners of the stove on, or partly on, and that the flame had gone out. But the next second I remembered I had not made dinner at home that night, that I had not used the stove. And certainly, if the burner had been left on earlier in the day and the gas had been escaping, I would have detected it when I came home.”

  She stopped again and lighted a fresh cigarette. I was rather amazed to see how steady her hand was. After all, she was telling me about what she believed to have been an attempt upon her life and she didn’t seem in the slightest excited. It suddenly occurred to me that, after all, perhaps when she had first entered my office she had been dramatizing and that now, as she related the facts. . . . But her voice arrested my line of thought.

  “I leaped out of bed and went into the kitchen.”

  She paused then, as though for dramatic effect. It was justified. What she said next was certainly dramatic enough.

  “The odor of gas was overwhelming. I flicked on the overhead light and looked over at the stove. There are six top burners, and the oven, and a separate oven with a broiler. Every one of those burners was turned on full.”

  My mouth fell open and I just stared at her.

  She nodded, as though to reassure herself.

  “All turned on,” she said. “Every one. The room was reeking with gas. As I rushed to the windows to open them, I thought that there would be an explosion any second—the moment the gas reached the pilot light. And then I remembered that the pilot light was out of order. It’s one of those little things Charles is always going to fix but never manages to get around to.”

  I was still staring at her in complete bewilderment.

  “But Ann,” I said, “Ann-”

  She shook her head, as though to keep me from interrupting.

  “I was still half asleep, still in a fog. The only thing I can recall is that I knew I must close those jets and get some air in the room. I wasn’t even trying to think how those burners could have been turned on. Anyway, I opened the windows.”

  “This is the damnedest thing—” I began.

  Again she interrupted me.

  Howard,” she said, “I wasn’t even trying to analyze it. J guess I was too shocked and frightened and surprised. Until I went to the back door to open it.”

  THE MERRIWEATHER FILE

  “The back door?”

  “Yes. You know, the kitchen door. It was then that I really had my shock. As you may recall, there are four small glass panes in the door. Well, the bottom left pane was broken and there was glass scattered all over the floor. In the middle of the glass was a child’s ball—the kind of ball the youngsters in the neighborhood use for softball games.”

  “And the door was unlocked?” I asked.

  “The door was unlocked.”

  “Ann,” I said, “were you positive the door was locked when you went to bed that night?”

  She hesitated a long moment and then slowly shook her head.

  “That’s the trouble. I’m not sure. I couldn’t remember having checked it. I usually do keep it locked, but on that particular night I couldn’t be sure.”

  I stood up suddenly and paced back and forth for several minutes. Finally I turned and stared down at her.

  “You think someone may have broken that window, reached in and opened the door and then entered the kitchen, turned on all of the gas jets, and left?”

  She nodded, keeping her eyes on mine.

  “Then Ann, why in the name of all that’s holy, haven’t you gone to the police?”

  She butted her cigarette in the ash tray on my desk and was silent for a long time, looking vacantly at the floor. At last she looked up at me and again spoke.

  “Because, Howard,”
she said, “it occurred to me that I myself might have turned on those gas jets.”

  I stared at her.

  “You mean—you mean that you—”

  “Howard,” she said, “there is something I should tell you. It’s rather painful, but I must tell you anyway, so that you’ll understand. I guess you’ve heard about my little boy? Heard how he was killed?” She pulled out a handkerchief and held it tightly against her eyes.

  I nodded. I knew how painful the memories must be and I wanted to save her as much as possible.

  “Yes, Ann,” I said. “I know.”

  “Howard, there is probably something that you don’t know. When Billy was killed, it just about finished me. I suffered a terrible shock and I was pregnant at the time. As a result I had a miscarriage and the tragedy was doubled when I lost my unborn baby. God knows, both Charles and I-”

  She stopped, half sobbing, and I didn’t attempt to do anything. I just had to sit there and let her collect herself. She did after a moment.

  “Anyway,” she said at last, jerking the handkerchief from her eyes, “Anyway, for a long time afterward, I wasn’t myself. Neither of us, Charles nor I, was quite normal. I was in a rest home for several weeks and then when I came home, I continued to grieve. You see—” Again she had difficulty controlling herself. “You see, I always blamed myself, blamed myself for letting him get out of my sight that morning. Well, about two weeks after I was back in the house, I had a sort of relapse. An uncontrollable m of despondency. And—” She stopped again, this time etting her head droop.

  THE MERRIWEATHER FILE

  “And,” she went on at last, “I did a very foolish thing. I waited one day until Charles had left and then I went into the kitchen and opened the oven and put my head inside and turned on the gas.”

  I stared at her unbelievingly.

  She smiled rather weakly.

  “Oh, I know now that it was foolish. That I was only feeling sorry for myself and letting my grief get the best—”

  “But Ann-”

  “I was lucky,” she said. “Mrs. Swanson, who used to live next door before you took your house, happened to stop by to borrow something. Sugar, I think it was. She found me. Found me in time.”

  I walked over and put my hand on her shoulder.

  “Ann,” I said, “Ann, I’m so sorry—”

  “Anyway, that morning, Tuesday morning, it suddenly occurred to me as I sat there waiting for the fumes to clear away, that perhaps I had left the back door open. That no one had broken the window and reached in and unlocked it from the inside. That the glass was broken because one of the neighborhood youngsters had thrown his ball and accidentally hit the door. And that, during the night, while I was asleep, I could have been dreaming and got out of bed and gone back into the kitchen and turned on those gas jets myself. After all, I had done just that same thing, once before.”

  “Ann,” I said, “do you really think that you—”

  Slowly she shook her head.

  “No more, Howard,” she said. “No, I no longer think that it was I who did it. You see, that first time, after Billy 2S

  tHe merriweather file

  was killed, when I tried to take my own life—I was actually out of my mind. At least temporarily. But today there is nothing wrong with my mind and I could never consciously try suicide. It is, after all, a crime against my church and my God. I would be incapable of it. That’s why I have come to you.”

  I was feeling just the slightest bit relieved. For a moment or so, as she had been telling me the story, I had honestly wondered if someone had, for some completely unknown reason, made an attempt upon her life. But then, when she mentioned the other incident—

  “What has changed your mind?” I said, trying to keep the obvious professional sympathy out of my tone. “Why Ann, now, do you suddenly—”

  “Puddles,” she said.

  “Puddles?” For a moment I was at a complete loss.

  “Yes, Puddles. You see, Puddles always slept—”

  Of course. Puddles. How could I have forgotten. My boys and I have played with the Merriweather dachshund a hundred times. Thrown sticks for him, fed him forbidden scraps from our table.

  “Puddles always slept in the kitchen. If anyone had entered and turned on the gas—well, he would never even have let them through the doorway without bringing down the whole neighborhood.”

  I nodded and suddenly smiled.

  “But then, Ann, don’t you see? Don’t you understand? It must have been you who turned on those gas jets. Goodness knows, this is serious enough, but at least—”

  ‘It couldn't have been me,” she suddenly interrupted.

  I stared at her, unbelievingly.

  “It couldn’t have been you? But haven’t you just told me that Puddles—”

  “Puddles was killed well over a week ago,” she said, slowly. “A week ago Friday, to be exact. Several days before it happened.”

  “Puddles was killed? Why—”

  “Yes, Howard. Someone killed him. Someone wanted him out of the way.”

  “Ann,” I said. “Ann, for God’s sake! Why do you say—”

  “I’ll tell you, Howard. You see, Puddles came home after running around the neighborhood, Friday night. I knew at once something was wrong with him. He wasn’t acting right at all. Wouldn’t eat, just lay down under a chair and whimpered. We—Charles and I—took him over to the vet in Westbury. Dr. Stevenson. You remember, you had him when your Maltese terrier—”

  “Yes, yes, I know him,” I said.

  “By the time we got there, Puddles was dead. He died in my arms on the way over. Of course there wasn’t anything the doctor could tell us. He just took Puddles and said that he would dispose of him for us. I can tell you we felt pretty sick about it. Dr. Stevenson told us that he must have eaten something that had disagreed with him, or else that it might very well have been a natural death. After all, Puddles was almost twelve years old. Anyway, there was nothing he could do and nothing we could do about it. So we just went back home and felt terrible and 5° had a couple of Scotch and sodas and decided never again t0 get another dog and have to go all through that.”

  I nodded. “I know,” 1 said. “But of course you will get another dog and you’ll love him just as much, and—”

  “But that isn’t the point,” Ann interrupted. “What I’m getting to is this. Wednesday, the day after the business with the gas jets, I began thinking about things. I began wondering. And so, just on a hunch, I called up Dr. Stevenson. I asked him if he could actually be sure what had caused Puddles to die.”

  I nodded, to encourage her.

  “And-”

  “Well, you know Dr. Stevenson. He’s thorough. A really dedicated man. He told me that after Charles and I had left, he’d begun to wonder. He’d treated Puddles for minor things and knew the dog. The more he wondered, the more curious he was as to the cause of death. In spite of the dog’s age, Dr. Stevenson couldn’t quite see why Puddles should have died so suddenly for no apparent reason. And so he did an autopsy.”

  “An autopsy?”

  “That’s right. Before disposing of the body, he’d performed an autopsy. And do you know what he discovered?”

  “Well?”

  “Puddles had been poisoned.”

  I shrugged.

  But Ann,” I said. “The dog could have found poison almost anywhere around. Garden weed killer, rat—”

  Not this kind of poison,” Ann said. “No, not the kind 3i

  that was given to Puddles. Puddles died from an injection of atropine—administered by a hypodermic needle.”

  For a long time after she had finished speaking I just sat there and thought. Finally I looked up at her.

  “And then, Ann,” I said, “You really honestly believe that someone broke that glass, entered the kitchen and turned on those gas jets. Even planted the soft ball to make it look as though—”

  “That’s what I believe, Howard. I believe someone tried to ki
ll me.”

  “But for God’s sake Ann,” I said. “Who? Who—and why?”

  “If I knew who, Howard, I would go to the police. Even if I knew why, I would go to them. But as God is my judge, I can think of no person on this earth who wishes me harm. I can think of no person who could possibly benefit in any slightest way because of my death. That’s what makes the whole thing so completely insane.” •

  “And you haven’t told Charles about this?”

  Slowly she shook her head.

  “No, I haven’t told Charles. Not yet. I can’t tell him yet. Poor Charles. You know, in spite of all his surface gaiety, he still hasn’t gotten over Billy’s death. He has enough problems right now. Things haven’t been going too well at the office and— But never mind about that. 1 just don’t want to worry him—at least until I’m sure. Why, • if Charles even dreamed that anything could happen to me— But as I say, things haven’t been going too well and he has to be on the road a lot. Has to work harder than ever. And I don’t want to do anything that would keep him at home and jeopardize his job, at this time. I don’t want him upset or unhappy again, just now.”

  “All right, Ann,” I said. “I can understand that. But you should go to the police. You should report—”

  “That would be the same thing as telling Charles. They’d get in touch with him and—”

  I nodded. “Yes, yes, I can see that. But Ann, you must do something. Perhaps you should see your priest. Perhaps he could—”

  “I see my priest to seek help with my spiritual problems,” Ann said. “This is not a spiritual problem.”

  “But there must be someone—”

  “I’ve come to you, Howard.”

  I smiled, a little sadly.

  “Ann,” I said, “Ann. I’m just a simple lawyer—and not a very good one at that. I’m not even a criminal lawyer. And so far as being one of those Perry Mason types who-” I shrugged.

  “But Howard, you can help me. You can tell me what to do. You can—”

  I can take you to lunch,” I said, looking down at my watch. “That’s one thing I can do and I am going to do, that is, if you have the time—”

  ‘I have all the time in the world,” she said a little ruefully. “That is, if someone doesn’t cut it off short.”