Secrecy

by Belva Plain

  “Wait a minute,” Cliff ordered. “They showed their badges, they have a search warrant, and there’s nothing we can do but behave well. Let them go through the house. We have nothing to hide.”

  Claudia sat down, clutching her chest. As she implored, her voice quavered, “It’s about Ted, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it is. What else could it be about?”

  Oh, God, Charlotte said silently. Of all days …

  “I will take them through,” Cliff said. “They are orderly gentlemen. Sit here and have your coffee.”

  “Nobody wants coffee or anything else,” Bill said. “We will sit on the porch. Go the back way, Claudia. You won’t have to see them. If you people want to leave,” he told Charlotte and Roger, “go ahead. You’re spending the night at my house, anyway, so maybe you’d better go there now.”

  But Charlotte had to know. Her heart was spinning. She had to stay there, to find out, to know.…

  “It’s about the son,” she whispered to Roger, drawing him out onto the lawn. “I didn’t tell you. He raped two girls, and that’s why he ran away. He was out on bail.”

  “They really know that he did it?”

  When she nodded, he asked how they could be sure.

  “They have evidence. The girls,” she said, thinking: Oh, God, he’s coming back.

  “Still,” Roger persisted, “the girls may not be telling the truth. They may have wanted it and afterward gotten scared, and saved themselves by putting the blame on him. I don’t say it happened like that, but it could have. He was foolish to run away without defending himself.”

  I am the witness who can prove that he rapes, Charlotte thought. I am the one who can see justice done, if it should ever come to that.

  They stepped up to the porch. Charlotte’s eyes met Claudia’s, and turned away. After all these years of avoidance they were back to Ted. The time had come.

  As if strength had even left her voice, Claudia was whispering, “He’s coming home. They’ll be bringing him home soon. That’s what this is.”

  “That makes no sense,” Bill chided, though not unkindly. “If they knew where he was, why would they be searching your house? They’re looking for any letters you may have hidden, that’s what it is.”

  “I didn’t say they know exactly. But he’s somewhere in that area where we were. That man we met in Thailand is the clue. Cliff was sure he was some kind of government agent. He got our name from the hotel registry, Cliff said. We even had a quarrel about it that morning.”

  Voices came through the open windows on the second floor. They were in the bedrooms now, searching closets and drawers, just as in the movies. Probably even opening pocketbooks. On the porch no one spoke. The utter strangeness of what was happening in the house had silenced them all.

  After a while Claudia resumed her half-hysterical whispering. “Casper. You remember Casper, Bill. He’s been so nice. Decent. Almost a friend. He’s been telling me that the FBI would probably be coming here. Funny, I didn’t think he knew what he was talking about. But he said things were heating up. The families of those girls, especially of that one who’s married, want action, and they’ve got influence.”

  Charlotte, glancing toward her father, knew what he was thinking. Influence, the kind the Daweses used to have. Not that they had ever misused it. No, never.

  “Casper told me people are even saying that’s why we went on the trip to Southeast Asia, to meet Ted. They’re saying our mail should be watched. I daresay it’s been under watch for years. Oh, what this does to people! It’s so ugly. I’ve even had suspicious thoughts myself and then been disgusted over having them, for thinking that maybe Casper is a plant with his stories about those girls and how they need to have this over with so that they can get on with their lives. As if I’ve not felt for those girls! As if—”

  “These gentlemen would like to see this box,” Cliff said, coming onto the porch.

  The pair, in their proper business suits, were neutral, neither old nor young, and bland, neither affable nor hostile. The large wooden box toward which they moved was the only piece of furniture beside chairs and plain tables.

  “There’s nothing in it but gardening tools,” said Claudia, her face so flushed with what must have been a blend of anger and humiliation that Charlotte had to look away.

  No one acknowledged the remark. The men put the contents of the box on the floor, where they made a pile of trowels, green string, gardening gloves, and packaged rose food. After looking inside the latter they replaced everything more or less as they had found it.

  “Well, that’s it. Thank you,” said one of the pair, addressing nobody in particular.

  Cliff went with them to the front door. “No doubt they’re disappointed,” he said bitterly when he returned.

  No one answered.

  “They were decent,” he said. He took a paper napkin, the nearest thing at hand, to wipe his sweating face. “They hardly spoke more than to ask directions to the attic. It was systematic. One did a cabinet, the other a highboy. I just stood in the doorway of each room. They took everything from every drawer and shelf, but they were considerate. They didn’t toss things around the way you might imagine they would. There’s not much of a mess.”

  Charlotte understood that he was trying to calm Claudia, who was obviously fighting tears. Why don’t you just go ahead and cry? she thought. But Claudia would never do that. And an aberrant image came to her, something almost comical: it was Elena in a situation like this one, screaming her fury and smashing to the floor every object within reach.

  “An outrage,” Claudia moaned. “An outrage to a family like this one.”

  “This family is not what it was,” Bill reminded her.

  He should not have said that. Claudia would take it to mean that it was her son who had changed the family’s image. But then, as if he had become aware of the same thing, Bill went on to console her.

  “All they did was to find nothing and prove themselves wrong. They wasted two hours of effort. Now they’re gone, so don’t exhaust your emotions. We have too much else to think about, anyway.”

  Claudia stood up. “You’re right, Bill. If you’ll all excuse me, I’d like to go tidy things. I hate the idea of those strangers upsetting everything I own.” And she went out.

  “It’ll be a terrible shock to her if Ted is brought back from wherever he is,” Cliff said, shaking his head in dismay.

  Bill was looking at Charlotte. Even if he and Charlotte had been alone, there would have been no need for words between them. It was the terrible shock to Charlotte that they foresaw.

  “Why don’t you two go on over to our house and make yourselves comfortable?” he suggested. “There’s plenty in the refrigerator for some supper tonight. You’ve had a long day.”

  Charlotte was nervous. Her whole chest quivered. “Would it be awful,” she asked Roger, “if we went back to Boston today? If you don’t think it’s a crazy idea, I’d like to. I’ll drive this time so you can rest.”

  “There’s no problem with that,” he said, so promptly that she knew he, too, wanted to leave, “neither with going nor driving.”

  “You don’t mind, Dad? I’ll be back again soon, I promise.”

  “No,” Bill said, “go ahead. We’ve got more business to discuss today, anyway.”

  Her father understood that quivering in her chest. He always did.

  “It was an awful day. I’m sorry,” she said when they were in the car.

  “Charlotte, I know you’re thinking that we’ve only known each other since June, and here you’ve had me witness all these private troubles. You’re embarrassed, but you shouldn’t be. You really shouldn’t,” he said gently.

  “I can’t help it. The whole thing was wretched.”

  “Yes, it was an ordeal. I have to admit I was a little shaken up myself when right in the middle of dessert, your uncle announced the FBI. It was terrible for your aunt. You know, even before it happened and she was being a smiling host
ess, I saw the sadness in her eyes. It made me think of my mother and my brother’s accident.”

  Charlotte’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. And words totally unexpected came out of her mouth. “That’s different. Claudia’s son was not lovable. He was careless, conceited, and cruel. A rapist.”

  “Can you be sure?”

  “Yes,” Charlotte said, “sure.”

  She ought not to be talking like this. She was walking close to a ledge above a precipice; a few more words, and she might topple over.

  “Then it is a real tragedy. I liked Claudia—liked them all. Anyone would look at her and never guess her story.”

  “That’s true.”

  “You never know what people have hidden inside, do you? The most average-seeming people on the street can tell you some amazing things about themselves if they want to.”

  God knows that was true! And again there came an ugly, traitorous surmise: If the authorities were going to so much trouble to find Ted, must there not be a very strong reason, and was it possible that Claudia was helping him to hide out there beyond the Pacific?

  Please God, she thought then, let her help him to stay there. Don’t bring him home. Don’t make me live it all over again.

  They were crossing the bridge above the river’s curve. Downstream lay the mill, at this distance mercifully indistinct.

  “Last look,” she said.

  “Try not to be too dejected, Charlotte. I know you had your heart set on this, but you’ll have plenty more opportunities in your life. You’ll just have to face the truth. I hate foolish optimism. Your father’s right. From all they were saying at lunch today, there are just too many obstacles.”

  Suddenly she saw herself as a little girl dressed to Elena’s fastidious taste, being taken to visit Daddy at the office. A flag flew on the pole in the center of the lawn. Along the walkway toward the long white building, there were flowers; you could see that this was an important place. In Daddy’s room he sat at an enormous desk, and you could see that he was an important man.

  “It’s not just me,” she said now, “it’s my father. He’s so changed. He’s defeated, and trying hard not to show it. The last ten years or more have been nothing but a downhill slide.”

  “I’m sorry,” Roger said.

  “Well, I’m sorry you’ve come all this way on a wild-goose chase.”

  “Charlotte, I wanted to come. It was my idea, not yours. And I’m glad I came.”

  She looked at him. “You really are a friend,” she said gratefully.

  “I want you to think so. Now, do you know what you’re going to do? You’re going to pull over and let me take the wheel. You’re exhausted.”

  “I’m not,” she protested, but the protest itself sounded weak, and after a little more urging from Roger they changed places.

  The car hummed down the highway. She laid her head back on the seat. After a while, as air rushing through the half-opened window cooled her face and whirred in her ears, she began to feel drowsy.

  “Close your eyes,” Roger said. “Don’t fight it.”

  When a few minutes had gone by, she sensed that he was looking at her, and opened her eyes.

  “That braid’s in your way,” he said. “Don’t you undo it at night?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then undo it now and be comfortable.”

  “Good idea. I will.” For some unknown reason it amused her to play the part of the obedient child before him.

  They were in the outskirts of Boston when she awoke. It was already dark. But when they stopped at a lighted intersection, Roger’s face was clearly visible. Lean, perhaps too lean, the nose aquiline and perhaps too prominent, the expression very serious, it had a singular masculine grace. And for a moment, before she was entirely awake, before anxieties came flooding back, she had a curious revelation, there in the snug shelter of the car, that the world could be, in spite of all, a serene and solid place.

  SEVEN

  In Kingsley some days later a critical discussion was in its final hour.

  “So,” Bill said, “our lawyer is as sure as you can ever be that Justice Niles is about to make us, the owners, the chief responsible party. That’s where we stand. The town fathers are sick of getting nowhere with the tenant, but if they go directly to us under the federal Clean Water Act, they can obtain an order for us to cease any more waste deposits. And the only way we can force our tenants to cease is to sue them. Simple, isn’t it? Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? Oh, the law!” he cried. “The logic of the law!”

  Evening had entered into the somber room where they sat, unheeding the growing darkness. Claudia rose and, turning on the lamps, scattered brilliant circles on the floor. The three were talked out and tired.

  “Simple,” Cliff repeated. “A fine of twenty-five thousand dollars a day for every day we fail to comply.”

  “We’re dead,” Bill said, throwing up his hands. “Dead, that’s all.”

  “Didn’t you say that the top man is in town?” Claudia asked timidly.

  Cliff answered, “So I heard. But nobody knows for sure. And you couldn’t get to him, anyway, if you did know. And if you did get to him, what would you say? Appeal to his sense of honor, for God’s sake? So what’s the difference?”

  And again, silence fell. From outdoors the monotonous stream of summer sounds, the chirp and rattle of crickets and locusts, merged into the silence.

  Bill spoke again. “It all ties in with another thing I heard. I’m putting jigsaw pieces together. We’ll be pushed into bankruptcy and Premier will buy the property for pennies. They’ll clean it up—what’s a couple of million to them?—and be more careful about keeping it clean afterward.”

  “Do you think they’d want it that badly?” asked Cliff.

  “Why not? Where, at that rate, could they buy any cheaper?”

  Claudia’s voice came unexpectedly out of the shadowed corner where she sat. “They’ll never buy it. Those people never do. They leave when their lease is up and move on because, as you are seeing, tenants are not ultimately liable for violating environmental laws. Owners are.”

  Both men looked at her with surprise.

  “I’ve read about it.”

  Bill got up and went to the window, stood there for a minute, then, walking to a pair of photographs on the library table, stood there looking at them.

  “My parents left so much for me to build on,” he said without turning his back, so that it seemed as if he were talking to the photographs. “And I have nothing for Charlotte. I’m not talking just about money either.”

  Cliff, obviously moved, spoke gently. “Charlotte will have a good life, Bill. She has her work, and if I’m not mistaken, she has a very fine young man in love with her too.”

  Claudia smiled. “You saw that, Cliff?”

  “Of course. It was obvious.”

  “She hasn’t said a word to me,” Bill said, facing them, “but if that’s true, it can only deepen my grief. Now, in her time of joy, that—after everything—she so deserves, all I can give her is my ruination. And on that note I’m going home to bed.”

  Big Bill, thought Claudia, the strong one. It was like watching a great tree axed and falling.

  Claudia stared into the bathroom mirror. She was thinking that she had been prettier when her face was pink and rounder. Then, she had had the wholesome, very feminine appearance of a mature, healthy countrywoman, not much concerned with fashion. This morning, quite perversely, she seemed younger than before, almost girlish; her cheeks had grown paler and thinner than she had realized, so that her blue eyes had become darker and larger. There was a certain greater interest and fashionable glamour in her sharpened features.

  She had to laugh at herself. Glamorous Claudia! An oxymoron if ever there was one! Especially of late she had these fleeting, odd sensations of precarious balance that caused her to grasp banisters or suddenly sit down for a minute while weeding the flower beds.

  Today, however, she was energi
zed. It was while lying awake last night after that miserable session in the library with Cliff and Bill that she had made up her mind. She knew exactly what she was going to do, and now she must dress the part, must look smart and confident. Those people had no respect for weakness.

  In early fall black-and-white was the way to go. She had learned such things from Charlotte, who had unmistakably been taught them by her mother—poor Elena, as Claudia always mentally referred to her. The dress was simple. Her hair, still bright and fair, was pulled back to display the handsome gold earrings that Cliff had bought on their trip to Asia—best not think of that right now! They, her wristwatch, and the diamond ring that had belonged to Cliff’s mother were enough. Less was always more.

  As she drove downhill toward the riverfront, her heart began to do startling leaps; pulses seemed to beat in her ears and weaken her wrists. But these things, given the circumstances, were only to be expected.

  She parked the car and, moving carefully in her high heels over the potholes in the broken walkway, entered the wide front door above which the letters DAW S ND CO P NY were still barely discernible. In the lobby a young man wearing a business suit was talking to a man in work clothes.

  For only an instant Claudia hesitated. Then, addressing the man in the business suit, she took her gamble, or perhaps as she thought about it later, she was obeying a strong hunch.

  “I’ve come to see Joey V.,” she said.

  Both men looked her up and down. Indeed, she was not the usual visitor to that place. The one in the business suit took his time to reply.

  “Who are you and what do you want?”

  His hesitation and his surliness told her that Joey V. was in the building.

  “Tell him that I’m Claudia Marple, and I need to talk to him. That’s all,” she said firmly.

  “Wait here.”

  She watched him climb what had once been a graceful flight of steps to the second-floor offices. The ceiling was high; it would be easy to push someone down from the head of the stairs, and he would never survive to tell about it. Such things have happened.… She was thinking this when the surly fellow came back and directed her.