Slack Tide

by George Harmon Coxe

  At the top, he knocked once before he opened the door. As he stepped inside, the smell of coffee came to him to mingle with a second smell that could only have come from frying bacon. When he called out, Ruth Kingsley appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  She wore the same blouse and skirt, but she had fastened a towel across the front of her to serve as a makeshift apron. She had a fork in one hand, and he could see her smile from where he stood. This time her hair was neatly combed, and her young face had a pink, freshly scrubbed look.

  “Good morning,” she called, “I didn’t know whether I should wake you or not. Coffee will be ready in three or four minutes, and I found some eggs. Would you like some? One, two?”

  Just seeing her there with that smile and the color in her face made MacLaren feel immeasurably better, and suddenly he felt a new confidence in himself. He said he would be ready in five minutes and that he would like two eggs, sunny side up. He said there was some frozen orange juice in the refrigerator, and she said she had already found it.

  MacLaren was as good as his word, and when he reappeared after a quick shave and shower, he came out to the breakfast table which stood opposite the window overlooking the parking-lot.

  It occurred to him as she sat down opposite him that this was a girl he had never seen before. The green eyes were clear this morning beneath the graceful brows, and the skin was smooth, with only a touch of lipstick at the mouth. This was an altogether lovely girl, and without his realizing it, a thought came from nowhere and began insidiously to expand and spoil his good humor. The base of this thought was: how could a girl like this ever marry a man with Kingsley’s reputation?

  Even as the thought came to him, he knew this was none of his business. He knew he could not even mention the subject now. What he did not understand was why the thought should keep recurring, why the mental images that followed one after the other should continue to bother him. When he glanced up and found her watching him, he felt the sudden warmth in his cheeks and he looked away lest she should somehow read his mind.

  He said the coffee was wonderful and the bacon done just the way he liked it. She smiled and said she was glad, and then, her face sobering as she put her coffee cup down and accepted a cigarette, she asked about the police.

  “Have you called them?”

  “No, but they’ll be here soon enough,” he said, and in this he was right.

  He was helping her rinse the dishes when he saw the two police cars pull into the parking-lot, and he recognized the three men who stepped out of them. As they started round the building, he spoke to the girl and went to meet them.

  He had the upstairs door open when they entered the showroom, and he called down to them. “Up here,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”

  He held the door for them, and Ruth waited in the center of the room as they entered, standing straight and yet at ease, her face composed.

  “This is Mrs. Kingsley,” he said. “Lieutenant Terry and Sergeant Wyre of the state police … Detective Lunt of the state’s attorney’s office.”

  They were surprised, all right, and their expressions showed it as they exchanged swift glances and acknowledged the introductions. In the momentary silence that followed, Lunt hitched his trousers up over his rounded belly and tipped his head slightly.

  “How long have you been here, Mrs. Kingsley,” he asked.

  “Since about three this morning,” MacLaren said.

  “You could have let us know.”

  “I guess there’s some other things I could have done.… Let’s sit down.” MacLaren waved to the chair and the sofa, and arranged another chair for the girl. “It’s sort of a long story,” he said finally. “It may take awhile.”

  “We’ve got time,” Terry said.

  “Sure,” Lunt added. “Start at the beginning, hunh?”

  MacLaren had expected some such request, and he knew what he was going to say. Starting from the moment he had pulled Ruth Kingsley onto the dock, he kept his story in its proper sequence, not making excuses or trying to justify his silence, but giving the broad picture of just what had happened. Occasionally he would turn to the girl for corroboration, and she would nod to reassure him. Once or twice Terry interrupted to make some comment, but they let him finish before they took the offensive.

  “I had an idea you’d change your story,” Terry said.

  “What story?” MacLaren said.

  “About that bruise on your cheek and the skinned knuckle.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us the truth last night?” Lunt said. “Afraid we’d book you for murder?”

  “If I thought I had anything to do with it,” MacLaren said, “I wouldn’t be telling it to you now, would I?”

  Terry chewed on the answer a moment and his narrowed gaze mirrored his annoyance.

  “You knew she’d run out”—he glanced at the girl—“when you went to the island with us,” he said accusingly.

  “Sure I knew it,” MacLaren said. “So did you. That’s why you put out the pick-up order. I thought it would be just a question of time before you found her. I couldn’t have been more surprised when I found her on the cruiser. You know how she got there, and why. I brought her back here, and we agreed to tell you the story in the morning. And that’s what we’re doing. If we hadn’t wanted to play ball,” he added, “I could have driven her to New York, and she could have been on her way to Texas by now.”

  Lunt did not like it. The gleam in his shrewd little eyes said so and he pulled his round body erect in the chair.

  “You make it sound pretty good,” he said, “but it doesn’t have to be the truth.” He paused to give a small grunt of annoyance. “You say Kingsley was all right when he hit the water, but what else could you say? If Mrs. Kingsley had used a two-by-six and swung it like a baseball bat, you’d still say it was only a little stick that couldn’t hurt anybody. You didn’t actually see him sitting in that boat.”

  Again he hesitated, and this time the girl took the play away from him.

  “Whatever happened to Oliver,” she said, “it was not Mr. MacLaren’s fault.”

  Lunt, who had been about to continue, closed his mouth and looked at her. So did MacLaren, a little surprised by such defiance, but liking her spirit. Before anyone could reply, she turned on Terry.

  “A man has a right to defend himself, hasn’t he?” she demanded.

  “Usually,” Terry said.

  “And that’s what Mr. MacLaren did. Oliver was furious when I wouldn’t go with him. He struck Mr. MacLaren first, and if he hadn’t fought back Oliver might have killed him. That’s why I picked up that piece of wood and threw it.”

  “It was just a little piece of two-by-four,” MacLaren said. “I doubt if it was six inches long. Maybe if some big-league, fast-ball pitcher had thrown it, it might knock a guy out, but the way she—”

  “Maybe Kingsley had a thin skull,” Terry said. “How do you know? How does anybody know until we get the medical examiner’s report? Let’s let that part of it go for now.”

  He adjusted his dark-rimmed glasses and again considered the girl. After a moment he said: “We’ll have to go over your story again, Mrs. Kingsley, with a stenographer, but what I’d like to know now is how long you were married to your husband, and why he kept you locked in that room.” He paused, his gaze intent. “Unless you’d rather wait until—”

  “Oh, no,” she replied at once, her gaze serious and her tone no longer defiant. “I think I’d like to. It’s been so long since I’ve talked to anyone and—I’d like you to understand.” She glanced down at her clasped hands, and when she continued, her voice was subdued but distinct.

  “I worked in a travel agency after I got out of college,” she said, “and last fall I had a chance to take a six weeks’ cruise to South America, as a hostess and assistant to the cruise director. Oliver came aboard just before we sailed, using an assumed name. He had just finished getting his second divorce and there had been a lot of publicity, most of it unp
leasant, most of it his fault—as I learned later.”

  She glanced up. “He could be very charming when he wanted to be. He was big and good-looking, and he seemed very considerate and attentive and—well, he was like no one I had ever known, and I suppose I fell in love with him. It doesn’t seem possible now that I could ever have felt that way, but I must have. I married him.”

  “Not under the assumed name?” Terry said.

  “Oh, no. He used the name because of the divorce publicity. He kept using it until he knew I was in love with him, because he said his other two wives had married him for his money and this time he wanted to be sure. Oh, he was very convincing,” she said, bitterness for the first time showing in her voice.

  “We were in St. Thomas and we’d hardly come back to New York when I knew I’d made a mistake. So long as he had his own way he was all right, but the moment someone crossed him he became furious. There were lights in night clubs, and lights between us when I tried to reason with him, and other women, and days when he wouldn’t come home at all. It was an obsession with him that he have his own way, and it was only his money and Neil Ackerman’s persuasiveness that kept him out of jail.”

  She unclasped her hands and flexed her fingers. “There’s no point in going into details now,” she said. “After the first few weeks there was nothing between us. I suppose it was pride that made me stay as long as I did. I’d made a mistake, and I tried to make the best of it, and finally I got sense enough to know it was futile. Last month I told him I was going to Reno and get a divorce, and when he saw I meant it he was wild.

  “Maybe it was this obsession that made him want to hurt anyone who dared to disagree with him. No one could divorce Oliver Kingsley; no one could leave him. If there was any divorce he would get it. He did the same to the first two wives, not because it was easier—in fact it was much more difficult for everyone—but because he wanted it known that he was the one who was doing the leaving. This time, when I wouldn’t agree, he locked me in my room. He’d come in every day and rage at me—he never struck me, but in a way the things he said and did were worse. Finally he came with a doctor. He said I’d had a breakdown and,”—she glanced up as she hesitated—“maybe I had. Anyway, I was given an injection, and after that I’m not quite sure what happened. I know there were other injections, and pills, but I really don’t remember too much about it. I don’t believe I was really aware of what was going on until I found myself in the corner room.”

  She looked in the direction of the island, but MacLaren understood that the things she saw were a lot farther away than the house that stood there. And suddenly he felt very much better. For he believed the things he had heard, and he was certain now that she had married Oliver Kingsley not for his money but because she had been genuinely in love with a man whose past and reputation had been skillfully hidden from her until she had been thoroughly sold on the charm and the personality of the man Kingsley could be when he wanted to.

  “I was left with nothing but a nightgown and a toothbrush and a robe,” she said. “The shutters were locked. There was nothing to read, nothing to do.” She paused, her voice hardly a whisper now and edged with some inner horror. “Three times a day Harry Danaher brought a tray and came to get it. From one side of the room to the farthest point in the bathroom was fifteen steps.”

  The quiet way she spoke and the simplicity of her words was all the more effective because she did not try to dramatize them. It left a brief spell upon those who were listening, and when Terry spoke, his voice was no longer aggressive.

  “What,” he asked, “was he trying to do to you?”

  “Drive me crazy, I think.”

  “He must have talked to you. What did he say?”

  “He said he would keep me in that room until I could be committed to some sanitarium, or until I signed the papers Ackerman had drawn up.”

  “So he could get the divorce on his own terms?”

  She nodded. “He said if I did that he would give me a small cash settlement and everything I wanted to keep me comfortable on the island while he went to Reno and made sure I didn’t contest him.”

  “And you wouldn’t sign?”

  “No,” she said simply. “I think I might have in another few days. I think I would have done almost anything—”

  She did not finish, but MacLaren knew what she meant. Heretofore he had been attracted to her physically, and now he was aware of something equally important—respect. There was very little guile in this girl, but there was intelligence, and a spirit that Kingsley had been unable to break.

  Terry let his breath out audibly and glanced at Lunt, who grunted softly and came up with a question of his own. “How come a guy like that could keep anybody with him at all?”

  “Because he was never mean or vicious if you did the things he wanted you to do. Or unless he was very drunk.” She leaned forward in her earnestness. “He was often very considerate, and he was generous to those who co-operated with him. A psychiatrist might know how to describe his complex; all I know is that if you stayed with him long enough something happened to your character. Take Neil Ackerman,” she said.

  “Neil knew Oliver at Harvard for a while—I think Oliver only lasted a year—and he went to New York after law school, and he wasn’t doing very well. He just happened to run into Oliver one night at a party and they got a little drunk and Oliver got into one of his fights. Neil handled things so well there was no publicity, and Oliver was grateful and gave Neil a job. I don’t know what the job was in the beginning—I imagine Neil thought he saw an opportunity to get a start—but what happened was that he wound up as sort of a companion, handling Oliver’s personal affairs rather than business matters. Neil likes nice clothes and the things money will buy, and Oliver paid him well and took him everywhere—he had a house in Palm Beach and a small place on Sea Island—and I suppose Neil likes to live that way.”

  “I guess it wouldn’t be too hard to take,” Lunt said.

  “Now,” she said, “he drinks a great deal, though he’s never drunk, and he has had nothing to do except keep Oliver out of jail and manage his personal accounts and go along with whatever Oliver happened to want to do at the time. Because of those years, I doubt if Neil has any ambition now to do anything else.”

  “Certainly not any hard work,” Lunt said dryly.

  “And Carla,” Ruth said, as though she had not heard, “Carla was an airline hostess when Oliver met her, and I guess he made love to her like he did to me, and she probably was just as flattered. But he was married at the time, and because he wanted Carla around, he hired her as a secretary. I guess probably she thought she might be the next Mrs. Kingsley.” She shrugged faintly. “If she did she got over it. I suppose she figured she could do better with Oliver than anywhere else—she has charge accounts in all the big New York stores—because she’s a determined woman and tougher than I am, inside I mean. Also, I understand Oliver assigned some stock to her. She gets the income from that instead of a salary.”

  “And how about the guy with the butch?” Lunt asked. “This artist fellow. What makes him hang around?”

  “Earl Harwell? Oh, he had a contract with Oliver.”

  “A contract?” Lunt scowled at her, his gaze perplexed. “You mean Harwell paints just for Kingsley?”

  “Well, in a way. I only know what I’ve heard, but I understand Oliver met him down in Greenwich Village at one of those sidewalk shows the artists have. Earl had been painting like mad and he was practically starving. I suppose it was just another of Oliver’s whims, but somehow he got the idea he’d subsidize Earl, and being Oliver he couldn’t do it in a normal way; he had to have some hold on Earl. Earl had been thinking about turning to illustrating and Oliver said he’d subsidize him—Oliver really does know something about art and painting—for two years provided Earl stuck to serious art and forgot about illustrating.”

  She paused and Lunt prompted her. “Harwell was going to stay with your husband for two years,
painting what he was told?” His tone suggested that such an arrangement was beyond his comprehension, but he persisted nevertheless. “Well—what did Harwell get for all of this?”

  “Oh, there was a regular contract. Neil Ackerman drew it up. Oliver was to pay Earl a hundred dollars a week, but only twenty dollars in cash. The balance was not to be paid until the end of the contract.”

  “Then,” said Lunt, “Harwell gets room, board, and cigarette money. At the end of two years he gets around eight thousand dollars if he’s a good boy; if not he gets the air, right? … How long does the contract have to go?”

  “I think it’s about six months.”

  Lunt grunted again and glanced at MacLaren. “The guy must have been nuts,” he said. “And so were the people that hung around him. If he hadn’t been loaded he’d have been in jail or an insane asylum long ago.”

  He seemed about to rise when another thought occurred to him. “What about Harry Danaher?”

  “I don’t know much about him,” Ruth said. “He has only been with Oliver since last fall. I only saw him a few times.”

  “You don’t think your husband bothered him much?”

  “No. I think perhaps Oliver was a little afraid of him.”

  Lunt nodded and pulled himself out of the chair. He looked over at Terry, one brow cocking slightly, and a silent message of some kind must have passed between them, because he digressed when he spoke to the girl again.

  “When you went back to the island last night and changed your clothes,” he said, “did you bring a bag or anything like that with you?”

  “Yes, I did.” She stood up. “An overnight case.”

  “Could we have a look at it?”

  “Certainly. It’s in here.”

  The green eyes seemed a bit perplexed, but she did not hesitate, and when she started for the bedroom, Lunt followed. For another second or two MacLaren was just as perplexed as the girl, and then the answer came to him as he remembered the ten thousand dollars in cash that Neil Ackerman said was missing. He could hear Lunt say something to the girl and they remained inside for perhaps another minute. When they reappeared, Ruth had her jacket over her arm, and Lunt, looking again at Terry, gave a small but noticeable shake of his head.