The Second Fletcher Flora Mystery Megapack

by Fletcher Flora

  “Never mind. Lie down and forget it. Think about Sinatra.”

  Gladys lay down on top of the covers, it being a warm night, and Rector laced his fingers under his head and continued to lie there quietly, on his back, smelling himself and listening for the sound of a shot next door.

  A COOL SWIM ON A HOT DAY

  Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November 1961.

  Suddenly awake, he opened his eyes in a glare of morning sun. The glare was blinding and painful, and so he closed his eyes again quickly and lay without moving in the soft shadows behind his lids. He could hear a clock ticking in the room. He could hear a cardinal singing in the white light outside. Something seemed to be scratching at his brain. The remembrance of something.

  And then he remembered. He remembered the night and the night’s shame. The focus of the night was Ellen’s face. The sound of the night was Ellen’s voice. The face was cold and scornful, remote and strange. The clear and precise articulation of the voice was more appropriate to proud defiance than to a confession. Lying and remembering, fixed in despair, he held to the slender hope that he remembered a dream.

  After a few minutes, needing to know, he got up and walked across the room and into a bathroom and through the bathroom into a room beyond. Ellen was lying on her bed in a gold sheath. He had put her there himself, he remembered, after shooting her. Ankles neatly together and one hand folded upon the other below her breasts. The hands covered with a definitive gesture of modesty, as if it were something intimate or obscene, the small hole through which her life had slipped out and away between her fingers. He had removed her shoes.

  So it was not a dream. He had killed her indeed in the shameful night, and there on the floor where he had dropped it was the gun he had killed her with. He looked at the gun and back at her. Oh, golden wanton. Oh, sweet and tender harlot wife. Having killed her, having laid her out neatly on a quilted satin cover, he had gone to sleep in his clothes in his own room. But this was an oversimplification and therefore a distortion. He had not merely gone to sleep. He had withdrawn, rather, into a deep and comforting darkness in which, if nothing was solved or made better, everything was at least suspended and grew no worse. He had slept soundly.

  Now, of course, he was awake and faced with the necessity of doing something, and what he must do was perfectly apparent The loaded gun was there, and he was there, and he had now, since last night, not only the negative motivation of not wanting particularly to live, but also the positive one of wanting and needing to die. But there was no urgency in it. He felt a kind of indolence in his bones, a remarkable lassitude. Walking over to the gun on the floor, he bent and picked it up and put it in a side pocket of his jacket, in which he had slept. He stood quietly, with an air of abstraction, watching Ellen on the bed in his heart was a movement of pain which he fancied for a moment that he could hear faintly, like the dry rustle of cicada wings. Turning away, the gun in his pocket, he went out of the room and out of the house and began walking down the street in a tunnel of shade that breached the bright day.

  He had no destination. He did not even have a particular purpose in leaving the house, except that he was not quite ready to die and felt compelled to do something, almost anything, until he was. He had a vague notion that he might walk into the country and kill himself there in some quiet spot, or perhaps, after a while, he might return to the house and kill himself in the room with Ellen, so that they might later be found together. This was an enormous problem, where finally to kill himself, and at the moment he felt in no way capable of coping with it. His mind was sluggish, still fixed in the gray despair to which he had wakened, and now, besides, his head was beginning to throb like a giant pulse, measuring the cadence of his heart.

  It was a very hot day. A bright, white, hot day. Heat shimmered on the surface of the street in an illusion of water. The sun was approaching the meridian in the luminous sky. The shimmering heat had somehow entered his skull, and all at once he was very faint, hovering precariously on the verge of consciousness while the gaseous world shifted and wavered and threatened to fade away. He had left the tunnel of shade and was now hatless in white light, the sun beating down directly upon his head.

  Still walking, he pressed a hand across his eyes, recovering in darkness, and when he removed his hand at last, looking down at his feet, he was filled with wonder to see that his feet were bare. On the tip of the big toe of the left foot was a small plastic bandage, signifying that the toe had been lately stubbed. The bare feet were making their way on a gray dirt road. The dirt was hot and dry and powdery, rising in little puffs of dust at every step and forming a kind of thin, gray scum on faded blue denim.

  For a second or two he could not for the life of him remember where he was or where he was going or how he had got there, but then it all came back clearly—how he had been sitting under the big cottonwood in the side yard at home, and how he had been thinking how good a swim in the creek would feel on such a hot day, and how at last he had decided to walk out and have the swim. So here he was, on the way, and everything was familiar again after being momentarily strange. He had just crossed Chaffee’s pasture to reach the dirt road where it junctioned with another road at the northeast corner of Mosher’s old dairy, and there ahead was the stand of scrub timber along the creek in which the swimming hole was.

  With an odd feeling of comfort and assurance, be said softly to himself, “I am Dewey Martin, and I’m going to have a cool swim in the creek on a hot day.”

  It appeared to be only a short distance on to the creek, but it was farther than it looked, nearly half a mile, beyond a cornfield and a pasture that were part of Dugan’s farm. Dewey left the road and crawled between two strands of a barbed wire fence into the field. He walked around the edge of the field to the other side, around the standing corn, and stopped there by the fence and surveyed the pasture to see where Jupiter was. Jupiter was Dugan’s bull, and he was dangerous.

  There he was, sure enough, down at one end of the pasture, a safe distance away, and Dewey slipped through the fence and hurried across before old Jupiter could make up his mind whether to chase him or not. The creek was quite near now, no more than twenty yards away, but Dewey sat down in the shade of a hickory tree to rest before going on. He was curiously tired and still a little light-headed, and he was slightly disturbed by being unable to recall anything between the time of leaving home and the time of suddenly seeing his bare feet on the dusty road by Mosher’s dairy. He had a feeling of having come a long way from a strange place, but this was surely nothing but a trick of the heat, the bright white light of the summer sun. After a few minutes he quit thinking about it and went on to the creek and stripped off naked and dived into the dark green water.

  It was wonderfully cool in the water, and he stayed in it for about an hour without getting out once, but then he got out and lay for quite a long time on the bank in a patch of sunlight, his bare brown body shining like an acorn. After that, when his flesh was full of clean white heat, he dived back into the water, and it was cooler than ever by contrast, the purest and most sensual pleasure that anyone could hope to have on earth. Altogether, he spent almost all the afternoon by himself at the creek, and he could tell by the position of the sun when he left that it was getting late, and that he would have to hurry on the long walk home.

  It was not quite so hot going back. A light breeze came up, which helped, and he made it all the way to town without stopping to rest or feeling light in the head a single time. Cutting across several blocks to the street on which he lived, he started down this street in the direction of home, hearing as he walked the good and comforting sounds of mowers and sprinklers and the first cicadas, and smelling a supper now and then among flowers and cut grass.

  Ahead of him, standing beside the walk, was a girl about his own age in a pink dress. It looked like a party dress, with a blue sash at the waist and a bit of lace at the throat. The girl had golden hair woven into two braids, an
d she was far and away the prettiest girl he had ever seen. As a matter of fact, he had instantly a notion that he had seen her before, although he couldn’t remember where or when. This could not be true, however, for if he had seen her, pretty as she was, he would not have forgotten.

  As he came abreast of her, she smiled and spoke.

  “Hello,” she said.

  He stopped, watching her, and said hello.

  “Do you live in this neighborhood?” she said.

  “Down the street a few blocks.”

  “I live here. In this house. We just moved here yesterday.”

  “That’s nice. I hope you like it.”

  “I don’t know anyone yet. I’m a stranger. I may like it when I get to know someone. Would you come and talk with me sometime?”

  “Sure. Maybe tomorrow.”

  He was painfully conscious of his dusty jeans and bare feet with the plastic bandage, somehow a survivor of the swimming and walking, still stuck on the one big toe. He edged away and began to turn, lifting a hand in a brief, shy gesture of good-bye.

  “What’s your name?” she said.

  “Dewey. Dewey Martin. What’s yours?”

  “My name is Ellen,” she said.

  The sound of it was like an echo in the fading afternoon as he hurried on his way, but he did not recognize it as a name that he had known in the future.

  IQ - 184

  Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, September 1962.

  Rena Holly was in the living room with the policeman when Charles Holly went downstairs to join them. Rena was sitting in a high-backed chair of polished walnut upholstered in dark red velvet. She was sitting there quietly, very erect, her knees together and her feet flat upon the floor and her hands folded in her lap. Her face was pale and still, perfectly composed, and she was even now, even in the violation of her grief by police procedure, so incredibly lovely that Charles felt in his heart the familiar sweet anguish that was his normal response to her. Only her eyes moved ever so slightly in his direction when he entered the room.

  “Charles,” she said, “this is Lieutenant Casey of the police. He is inquiring about Richard’s death.”

  Lieutenant Casey arose from the chair in which he had been sitting opposite Rena. He was a stocky man with broad shoulders and a deep chest and thin gray hair brushed neatly across his skull from a low side part. His face was deeply lined and weathered-looking, as if he spent much time in the wind and sun, and the hand he extended toward Charles had pads of callus on fingers and palm, although its touch was surprisingly gentle. He seemed awkward in his gray suit, which was actually of good cut and quality, and the impression he gave generally was one of regret, almost of apology, that he had been forced by his position to intrude.

  “Good afternoon, Lieutenant,” Charles said. “We’ve been expecting you.”

  “Sorry,” Casey said. “It’s a routine matter, of course. I regret that I’m compelled to disturb you at this time.”

  “Not at all. We must tell you whatever is necessary.”

  Charles sat down and placed his hands on his knees in an attitude of attention, while Casey resumed his place in the chair from which he had risen. “Please ask me anything you wish.”

  “I think that Lieutenant Casey wishes you to tell him exactly how Richard died,” Rena said.

  She spoke softly, with a kind of deficiency of inflection. Charles was aware of the terrible and almost terrifying quality of her composure, and he wondered if Casey was also aware of this. He doubted it. Her horror and grief were not apparent, although the latter could be assumed, and Casey was not familiar, as Charles was, with the wonderful complexity of her character.

  “I’d be grateful if you would,” Casey said. “Just as it happened from the beginning, if you don’t mind.”

  “Well.” Charles paused, seeming to gather his thoughts, but he knew, in fact, what he was going to say, and his mind was functioning, as it always did, with precision and clarity. “Richard was a guest in this house for the weekend. Perhaps Rena has told you that. In any event, he asked me this morning to take a walk with him. I did not wish to walk with him, and I told him so, but he asked me to humor him as a special favor. I did not really feel that I owed him a favor, special or otherwise, but he was so urgent that I agreed to go.”

  “What was the reason for his urgency?”

  “The answer to that would involve Rena. I’d rather that she answered, if she wants the question answered at all.”

  “Oh?” Casey looked vaguely astonished and somewhat distressed that he had been led so quickly by his own question into an area of intimacy that he would have preferred to avoid. “Mrs. Holly?”

  “Certainly, Lieutenant. As Charles has said, we must tell you whatever is necessary.”

  Rena’s hands moved, smoothing the skirt over her knees, and then sought and held each other again in her lap. “Richard was in love with me. And I with him. It was not an emotional attachment that either of us particularly wanted in the beginning, but it happened, and there was no help for it. We wanted to marry. I spoke with Charles about it and was, I thought, candid and reasonable. But it was an unfortunate effort on my part, I’m afraid. Charles was very angry. He refused even to discuss the matter. Then, of course, Richard wanted to approach him. I agreed rather reluctantly, and it was for that purpose specifically that I invited Richard here for the weekend. And that was why Richard urged Charles to take the walk with him.”

  She stopped abruptly, resuming the perfect posture and expression of composure that speaking had barely disturbed, and Casey, after waiting a few seconds until it was clear that she was finished, turned back to Charles.

  “That is true,” Charles said. “I suppose he felt that a brisk walk in the open air would be propitious to his purpose. The manly approach. Two gentlemen settling amicably between themselves a rather delicate matter. Richard was remarkably naive.” His voice took on the faintest color of irony, as if he were mildly amused in retrospect by something which had been irritating at the time. “I must confess, however, that I was not impressed. Richard’s effort to win me over was no more successful than Rena’s, although I listened courteously and gave him every chance. All this time, while he was talking, we were walking among the trees in the direction of the river, and we came out upon a high bluff just where the river bends. There is a wooden bench on the bluff there, for it’s a rather scenic spot, and we sat on the bench until he had quite finished what he wanted to say. Then I told him that my feelings were unchanged, and that I should never be reconciled to any kind of intimate relationship between him and Rena. It made me sick to think about it.”

  He paused again, ordering details precisely and accurately in his mind, and Casey waited in silence for him to continue. Rena did not seem to have heard him at all, or even to be aware at the moment that he or Casey was in the room. She had been staring at her folded hands, but now she raised her eyes to a focus beyond the walls and perhaps beyond the time. If she had listened to anything, or was now waiting for anything, it was a private sound and a private expectation.

  Now, Charles was thinking, I have come upon dangerous ground. Up to this point I have adhered strictly to the truth, because the truth served, but now it is time for the essential deviation, the necessary lie.

  “Please go on,” Casey prompted.

  “Richard was very angry with me,” Charles said. “As for me, I wanted only to leave him, to terminate an unpleasant episode as quickly as possible, and I stood up and walked away to the edge of the bluff. Richard followed me, still very angry, and began to shake me by the arm. I do not like to be touched, even without violence, and I tried to jerk away, but he held on to my arm firmly. I struggled, finally breaking free, and the action caused him to lose his balance. We were standing right at the edge of the bluff, much nearer than either of us, I think, quite realized in our emotional state, and, to put it simply and briefly, he fell over the edge. The bluff, as you know, is high and almost perpe
ndicular at that place. At the foot, the bank of the river at the bend is wide and littered with great rocks. Richard fell among the rocks, where you found him, and was, I believe, killed instantly. He was certainly dead when I reached him, after finding a way down the bluff farther along. When I saw that he was falling, I tried to catch hold of him, but he was gone too quickly.”

  And there it is done, and done well, he thought. The essential deviation. The necessary lie. So slight a deviation and so small a lie. The difference between holding and pushing. Between life and death. Between innocence and guilt. Casey believes me, certainly, but Rena doesn’t. Rena, lovely Rena, sits and says nothing and knows everything. She knows how Richard died, and why, but that is unimportant. What is important is that she submits to a deeper commitment than any she could have felt to Richard or feels now to justice. She is mine so long as she lives. She will never belong to anyone else.

  “I see.” Casey slapped his knees suddenly with both hands, the sound startling in the still room. It even startled Casey, who had made it, and he clenched one of the hands and stared reproachfully at the big knuckles under taut and whitened skin. “You were wise to leave the body where it fell until we had seen it. You have been very helpful altogether, I must say. Thank you very much.”

  “There is so little that one can do, really.” Charles stood up. “Now if I may be excused, I’d like to return to my room.”

  “Of course. You’ve had a bad experience, I know. I appreciate your cooperation in such trying circumstances.”

  Having been excused by Casey, Charles turned toward Rena. She seemed unaware of this, still abstracted, but after a few seconds she turned her head and stared at him with her dark expressive eyes which were now so carefully empty of all expression. She nodded without speaking, the merest motion of her head, and he turned and went out of the room into the hall. He stopped there, out of sight but not of sound, his head half-turned and tilted, as he stood and listened.