Women Crime Writers

by Sarah Weinman

  Something in her voice alerted him, and he rolled over on the bed and sat up. “What kind of errand? You’re not going to see a doctor?”

  “No, that’s your duty.”

  “And what’s yours?”

  “Mine,” she said, “is to see Terola.”

  “No. Don’t go there.”

  “I must. It’s my duty, as your mother.”

  “Don’t go.”

  “I must confront this evil man, face to face.”

  “He’s not an evil man,” Douglas said wearily. “He’s like me.”

  “Have you no shame, no sense of decency, defending a man like that to me, to your own mother?”

  “I’m not defen—”

  “Where’s your self-respect, Douglas, your pride?”

  He had so many things to say to her that the words became congested in his throat and he said nothing.

  “I’m going to see this Terola and give him a piece of my mind. A man like that being allowed to run around loose, it’s a disgrace. He’s probably corrupted other young men besides you.”

  “He didn’t corrupt me.”

  “What are you saying, Douglas? Of course he did. He was responsible. If it weren’t for him you’d be perfectly normal. I’ll see to it that he pays the . . .”

  “Mother. Stop it.”

  There was a long silence. Their eyes met across the room and went on again, like strangers passing on a street.

  “Terola,” she said finally. “He wasn’t the first, then.”

  “No.”

  “Who was?”

  “I’ve forgotten.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “It was so long ago that I can’t remember.”

  “And all these years—all these years . . .”

  “All these years,” he repeated slowly, using the words like weapons against both her and himself.

  He didn’t hear her leave, but when he looked up again, she was gone and the door was closed.

  He lay back on the bed, listening to the beat of rain on the roof, and the cheep-cheep of a disgruntled house wren complaining about the weather from under the eaves. Every sound was clear and sharp and final: the cracking of the eucalyptus trees as the wind increased, the barking of the collie next door, Mabel’s old Dodge wheezing up the driveway, the slam of a car door, the murmur of the electric clock beside his bed.

  It seemed that he had never really listened before, and now that he had learned how, each sound was personal and prophetic. He was the wren and the rain, he was the wind and the trees bending under the wind. He was split in two, the mover and the moved, the male and the female.

  All these years, the clock murmured, all these years.

  Verna tapped on the door again and came in. She was dressed to meet the weather, in a red plaid raincoat and a matching peaked cap.

  She said, “Mabel’s back. Keep your voice down. She has ears like a fox.”

  “I have nothing to say, anyway.”

  “Perhaps you’ll think of something by the time I get back.”

  “You’re not going to see Terola?”

  “I told you I was.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “I have some questions to ask him.”

  “Ask me instead. I’ll answer. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  “Stop wheedling like that, Douglas. It annoys me.” She hesitated. “Don’t you see, I’m only doing my duty? I’m only doing what your father would have done if he were still alive. This man Terola, he’s obviously corrupt, and yet you’re trying to protect him. Why? You said you’d tell me anything. Why?”

  He lay motionless on the bed, his eyes closed, his face gray. For a moment she thought he was dead, and she was neither glad nor sorry, only relieved that the problem had been solved by the simple stopping of a heart. Then his lips moved. “You want to know why?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because I’m his wife.”

  “His . . . What did you say?”

  “I’m his wife.”

  Her mouth opened in shock and slowly closed again. “You filthy little beast,” she said quietly. “You filthy little beast.”

  He turned his head. She was standing by the bed watching him, her face distorted with loathing and contempt.

  “Mother. Don’t go. Mom!”

  “Don’t call me that. You’re no part of me.” She walked decisively to the door and opened it. “By the way, I forgot. Happy birthday.”

  Alone, he began to listen again to the clock and the wren and the rain and the trees; and then the sound of the Buick’s engine racing in response to Verna’s anger. She’s leaving, he thought. She’s going to see Jack. I couldn’t stop her.

  He got up and went into the bathroom.

  For almost a year, ever since his marriage to Evelyn, he’d been saving sleeping pills. He had nearly fifty of them now, hidden in an epsom-salts box in the medicine chest, capsules in various gay colors that belied their purpose. He swallowed five of them without any difficulty, but the sixth stuck in his throat for a few moments, and the seventh wouldn’t go down at all. The gelatin coating melted in his mouth and released a dry bitter powder that choked him. He did not try an eighth.

  He removed the blade from his safety razor, and standing over the washbasin he pressed the blade into the flesh that covered the veins of his left wrist. The razor was dull, the wound was hardly more than a scratch, but the sight of his blood oozing out made him dizzy with terror. He felt as if his knees were turning into water and his head was filling with air like a balloon.

  He tried to scream, “Help! Mother!” but the words came out like a whimper.

  As he fell forward in a faint his temple struck the projecting corner of the washbasin. The last sound Douglas heard was sharp and clear and final, the crack of bone.

  Chapter 10

  AT 10 O’CLOCK, Miss Clarvoe, who had slept late, was just finishing her breakfast. When she heard the knocking on the door, she thought it was one of the busboys from the dining room coming to collect her tray and his tip.

  She spoke through the crack of the door. “I haven’t quite finished. Come back later, please.”

  “Helen, it’s me. Paul Blackshear. Let me in.”

  She unlocked the door, puzzled by the urgency in his voice. “Is there anything the matter?”

  “Your mother’s been trying to reach you. The telephone company wouldn’t give her your unlisted number so she called me and asked me to come over.”

  “To tell me she’s canceled the birthday luncheon, I suppose.”

  “She’s canceled it, yes.”

  “Well, she needn’t worry about Douglas receiving a present from me. I sent a check out last night, he should get it today.”

  “He won’t get it today.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sit down, Helen.”

  She went over to the wing chair by the front window, but she didn’t sit down. She stood behind it, moving her long thin hands nervously along its upholstered back, as if to warm them by friction.

  “It’s bad news, of course,” she said, sounding detached. “You’re not an errand boy, even mother wouldn’t use you as an errand boy to tell me about a canceled luncheon.”

  “Douglas is dead.”

  Her hands paused for a moment. “How did it happen?”

  “He tried to commit suicide.”

  “Tried? I thought you said he was dead.”

  “The doctor believes Douglas swallowed some sleeping capsules and cut one of his wrists, but the cause of death was a blow on the head. He struck his temple against the washbasin as he fell, probably in a faint.”

  She turned and looked out of the window, not to hide her grief, but to hide the grim little smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. Poor Douglas, he could never finish anything properly, not even himself.

  “I’m sorry, Helen.”

  “Why should you be? If he wanted to die, that was his affair.”

  “I meant I was sorry f
or you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you don’t feel anything, do you?” He crossed the room and stood facing her. “Do you?”

  “Not much.”

  “Do you ever feel anything? For anybody?”

  “Yes.”

  “For whom?”

  “I—I wish you would not get personal, Mr. Blackshear.”

  “My name is Paul.”

  “I really can’t call you that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just can’t, that’s all.”

  “Very well.”

  “I . . .” She stepped back and stood against the wall with her hands behind her back, like an embarrassed schoolgirl. “How is mother taking it?”

  “I’m not really sure. When she called me on the telephone she seemed more angry than anything else.”

  “Angry at whom?”

  “Evelyn Merrick.”

  “I don’t understand. What had Evelyn to do with Douglas’ death?”

  “Your mother holds her responsible for it.”

  “Why?”

  “Evelyn called your mother last night and gave her some information about Douglas and Jack Terola, the man who’s supposedly been giving Douglas lessons in photography. I won’t repeat the information. It wasn’t pretty, though, I can tell you that. This morning your mother taxed Douglas with it and he admitted that some of it, at least, was true. Your mother wanted a showdown with Terola and actually started out to see him. Whether she saw him or not, I don’t know for sure. She says she didn’t, that she turned around and came back to the house. Meanwhile, the maid had found Douglas’ body when she went to clean his room, and she called the doctor. The doctor was there when your mother arrived. She tried to get in touch with you immediately, and failing that, she called me and asked me to come over here.”

  “Why?”

  “The telephone company . . .”

  “I meant, why was she so anxious to have me informed right away? So she could be sure I’d send a nice fat wreath, as I sent a nice fat check?”

  “That’s uncharitable, Helen.”

  “Yes, I guess it is. I’m sorry. Life has taught me to be suspicious. I’ve learned the lesson too well.”

  “Perhaps you can unlearn it some day.”

  “Perhaps. It’s harder to unlearn, though.”

  “I can help you, Helen.”

  “How?”

  “By giving you something that’s been too scarce in your life.”

  “What?”

  “You can call it love.”

  “Love.” Violent pink spread up from her neck to her cheekbones. “No. No. You—you’re just trying to be nice to me.”

  “I’m not trying,” he said with a smile. “I am being nice to you.”

  “No. I don’t want your love, anyone’s. I can’t accept it. It—embarrasses me.”

  “All right. Don’t get excited. There’s no hurry. I can wait.”

  “Wait? What will you wait for?”

  “For you to unlearn some of those lessons you’ve been taught.”

  “What if I can’t. What if I never . . .”

  “You can, Helen. Just tell me you’ll try. Will you?”

  “Yes, I’ll try,” she whispered. “But I don’t know where to start.”

  “You’ve already started.”

  She looked surprised and pleased. “I have? What did I do?”

  “You remembered Evelyn Merrick.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “You referred to her quite casually a few minutes ago as Evelyn. Do you remember her clearly now?”

  “Yes.”

  “In her phone call to you the other night, when she said you’d always envied and been jealous of her, was she right, Helen?”

  “She was right.”

  “That’s no longer true, is it?”

  “No. I don’t envy her any more. She’s to be pitied.”

  “Pitied, yes,” he said, “but watched, too. She’s all the more dangerous because she can appear quite rational on the surface.”

  “You’ve seen her, then.”

  “Not yet, I’ll see her tonight. But I discussed her with your mother last night before the phone call, and early this morning I talked to Evelyn’s own mother. Neither of them had the faintest suspicion that the girl is insane. She appears to have a completely split personality. On the one hand, she’s the affectionate, dutiful daughter, as well as your mother’s idea of a perfect daughter-in-law—and the latter would take quite a bit of doing, since your mother’s not easy to please.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “On the other hand, the girl is so full of hatred and vengeance that she wants only to destroy people by turning them against one another. She’s crafty, she hasn’t had to do any of the destroying herself. She just throws in the bone and lets the dogs fight each other over it. And there’s usually some meat of truth on the bone.”

  She thought of her mother and Douglas, and how they had fought throughout the years, not like dogs, or like boxers in a ring face to face, but like guerrillas stalking each other in a dark forest. Into this forest Evelyn had thrown a giant flare which lit up the trees and the underbrush and scorched the enemies out of their cover.

  Poor Douglas. He was always a boy, he could never have grown up in a dark forest.

  “I sent him a check for his birthday,” she said dully. “Perhaps if I’d sent it sooner . . .”

  “A check wouldn’t have made any difference, Helen. The doctor found nearly fifty sleeping capsules in the medicine chest. Douglas had been planning this for a long time.”

  “Why does mother blame Evelyn for it, then?”

  “She has to blame someone. And it can’t be herself.”

  “No,” she said, thinking, mother was trapped in the forest just as much as Douglas was. Years ago someone should have led them out, but there was no one except father and me, and father was too harsh and I was lost myself.

  She covered her face with her hands and tears slid out between her fingers.

  “Don’t cry, Helen.”

  “Someone should have helped. Years ago someone should have helped.”

  “I know.”

  “Now it’s too late, for Douglas, for mother.” She raised her head and looked at him, her eyes softened by tears. “Maybe it’s too late for me, too.”

  “Don’t think that.”

  “Yes. I feel inside me that I’ve lived my life, I’m only waiting, like Douglas with his hoard of sleeping capsules. Perhaps I’ll get another phone call, perhaps it will light up the underbrush and I won’t be able to bear what I see.”

  “Stop it.” He put his arms around her, but her body grew stiff as wood at his touch and her hands clenched into tight fists. He knew the time had not yet come, and perhaps never would.

  He walked away to the other side of the room and sat down at the desk, watching the change come over her at his retreat, the relaxation of her muscles, the easier breathing, the leveling off of color in her face. He wondered if this was how they must remain for all time, a room’s width away from each other.

  “You’re very—kind,” she said. “Thank you, Paul.”

  “Forget it.”

  “I suppose now I must go home and stay with mother. That’s what is expected of me, isn’t it?”

  “By her, yes.”

  “Then I’ll get ready, if you’ll excuse me.”

  “I’ll drive you over, Helen.”

  “No, please don’t bother. I’ll call a cab. I don’t want to interfere with your investigation.”

  “My investigation, as such, is almost finished. You asked me to find Evelyn Merrick. Well, I’ve found her.”

  “You think it’s all over, then? Everything’s settled?” Her voice was insistent. “You have no further work to do on the case?”

  “There’s work to be done but . . .”

  “More than ever, in fact.”

  “Why more?”

  “Because there’s been a death,
” she said calmly. “Evelyn’s not going to stop now. I think Douglas’ death will actually spur her on, give her a sense of power.”

  It was what Blackshear himself feared but he hadn’t wanted to alarm her by saying so. “It could be.”

  “Where did she get her information about Douglas?”

  “From Terola himself, I guess.”

  “You mean they could be together in some extortion racket?”

  “Perhaps Terola intended it that way, but Evelyn needs deeper satisfactions than money can give.”

  “But you think they were partners?”

  “Yes. When I went to see Terola about her, he was pretty cagey. I got the impression he knew the girl a lot better than he admitted.”

  “So if there’s any evidence against her, this man Terola would have it?”

  “Evidence of what?”

  “Anything that can be used to put her away some place. So far she’s done nothing actionable. In Douglas’ case she didn’t even tell a lie. She can’t be sued or sent to jail just for phoning mother and telling her the truth. And yet, to a certain extent, she’s morally guilty of Douglas’ death. You’ve got to stop her, Paul, before she goes on.” She turned so that he couldn’t see her face. “I may be next.”

  “Don’t be silly, Helen. She can’t call you, she doesn’t know your number. And if she comes to the door, don’t let her in.”

  “She’ll think of some other way. I feel she’s—she’s waiting for me.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Look, if you’re nervous about going over to your mother’s house, let me drive you.”

  She shook her head. “I’d rather you went to see Terola. Tell him about Douglas, force him to talk, to give you information that can be used in court.”

  “That’s a tall order, Helen. Even if he knows Evelyn like a book, he’s not going to read it aloud to me. He’d incriminate himself.”

  “You can try, can’t you?”

  “That’s about it. I can try.”

  He waited while she went into the bedroom to dress for the street. When she came out she was wearing a dark gray woolen coat and an old-fashioned black felt hat with a broad brim turned down over her forehead. The outfit made her look as if she’d stepped out of the previous decade.