The Watcher

by Dolores Hitchens

  Archer sank lower in his chair, almost as if to fade from her sight and let her forget that he was there.

  “Obviously, in this town he could have found plenty of adults on whom to vent his self-righteous wrath.” Her eyes suddenly focused on Archer as if demanding agreement; and he nodded. “He didn’t. In all cases he chose children. To me it smacks of something occupational.”

  Archer made a motion with one hand, almost a finger-snapping, as if catching himself in some oversight.

  “He could be a man who has some authority over children. Or who craves to have. I think he’d be a man children don’t like much. He wants to lead them, and he’s thwarted.”

  Into Archer’s mind rose the thought of Warren and the boatyard. Swarms of kids at all hours. Warren always hired youngsters, too—he had one there now that . . .

  She was speaking again in the hoarse, exhausted half-whisper. “He is secretive. Sly. He likes to feel that he moves mysteriously, and probably he has some infantile identification with such figures as Superman, Zorro, and such like. The writing of the letter had but one purpose—the further inflation of the ego. He was no longer satisfied to know the truth all by himself. Sharing it meant impressing others. I think if you wait long enough, Mr. Archer, you’ll walk in some day to find him waiting for you in that outer office. Of course by then someone else will be dead. Another child. Or perhaps two or three.”

  Archer thought grimly, how right you are, my girl. Aloud, though, he said, “All valid conclusions, Miss Tomlinson. Most of which had occurred to us.” He sat a little straighter, smiled at her. “Do you feel like going back over that day your sister died? You know, I mentioned the idea in the——”

  She didn’t answer the smile. Her face was stiff. She rose suddenly. “I’m much too tired. Besides, there is something I have to do. Perhaps I can see you again tomorrow morning. At your office.” Her tone invited: Don’t come here.

  Archer went away. He decided to have a look around Warren’s boatyard, and to find out if Barbara Martin might possibly have hidden out there for the three days she had been missing. It seemed to him that Warren had various small shacks and sheds amidst the clutter.

  When he had gone, Lottie went to a table and got a pen and a tablet of Edie’s old school paper. She was about to write a letter of her own.

  I know that you were in there earlier, when I knocked. I wanted to talk to you about Edie.

  It has occurred to me that you lead the kind of life and that you are the kind of person who might have written that letter to the police.

  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, ignore this. If you do, go now and have the decency to give yourself up.

  You were there hiding. I heard you.

  Lottie looked at the sheet for some minutes before folding it without a signature.

  She went out into the afternoon sunlight, to the door of the other flat. She slipped the letter beneath the door.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE DRIVER threw a glance over his shoulder at Larry in the back seat. “You know, I thought I recognized that girl who was waving to you in the distance. Isn’t she Molly Pettit?”

  Larry hesitated for a fractional moment. “Yes, sir, that’s right.”

  “You and she were at the beach for a swim?”

  “We had a sort of picnic.” Larry couldn’t see the other’s face, now; the driver was staring at the road and the hat brim cut off all but the shadowy chin. “And then we swam too, of course. The water’s swell today. Surf’s just right. Sometimes, these open beaches, it can be pretty rough.”

  The hatted head jerked in a nod. “How is she? Pretty nice company?”

  Larry thought about how to take this. It could mean something funny if you were expecting that; or it could just be friendly interest. He said expressionlessly, “She’s a lot of fun.” The man in the front seat, he decided, wasn’t the type to pass remarks with a double meaning. Larry tried to clear his mind of any suspicion of it.

  “It’s pretty sticky, riding home all the way in a wet suit. How do you manage? Change down there on the beach?”

  Larry felt a certain tightness settle in him. This wasn’t what he would have expected. It bordered on nosiness or worse. But again he repressed the beginnings of doubt. “I wear my suit under my pants. I guess my hide’s tougher than most. I don’t mind it, wet or not.”

  “And how about Miss Pettit?”

  Larry thought instantly about that tussle they’d had. He’d been a fool. She was his girl, she loved him; he knew it. He had no business pulling a riot like that, scaring her. The moments preceding her frantic escape from him were hazy; he remembered trying to untie the halter, how the knot had loosened suddenly while she was protesting that her suit was still in the car. Then her warmth and closeness had overwhelmed him and he had lost control.

  He remembered climbing the bluff, trying to keep up with her. How the little rocks dislodged by her frightened hurry had popped against his face, how dust flew in his eyes. Then the empty expanse, nothing but the pooped-out-looking Ford sitting in a waste of weeds and, far away, traffic buzzing on the highway. Afterwards, Molly clinging to him and crying brokenly about her fears and his carrying her back to the beach. She had seemed drowsy and drained. Later he had brought her suit from the Ford.

  Why hadn’t he noticed then that the tire was low?

  My mind must have been on something else. Yeah!

  He awoke abruptly to the silence in the front seat, the memory of the question that had set off the train of memories. “Miss Pettit changed in the car,” he said.

  More silence. Larry had the impression that the driver somehow knew different. But how?

  No way at all. There was no possibility of being seen on that beach by anyone except a sea gull.

  Larry caught himself shaking his head. He was getting to be like Molly, he was listening for trouble, expecting it.

  If she could see me now . . . He broke it off; the thought changed. If she could hear these questions, she’d have a fit.

  “That isn’t Miss Pettit’s car,” the other man was saying. “I mean, it’s not the one she usually drives.”

  This guy really notices things! “It’s her uncle’s car.”

  “That convertible of hers is a pretty flashy piece of merchandise,” said the driver, almost musingly.

  It struck Larry then how unlike Molly herself was the car her parents had provided her. All chrome and dazzling paint and low rakish lines. Bold power under the hood. A suggestion of insolence in the way it handled. An enormous trunk to hold glamorous luggage. The kind of car that went important places. Not a machine—an expression of what they hoped from Molly. Molly with her stubby, awkward hands, unmanageable hair, and humble manner. Oh, Molly!

  The thought of her brought a strange quick pang. How in the hell had he come to love her this much?

  “She doesn’t like her car much,” he said to the driver. “She says it makes her feel like she’s wearing a disguise.”

  “That’s rather foolish. Most young people would give a good deal to drive that convertible, to have it for their own.”

  “I guess she’s not the pattern,” Larry said.

  “She doesn’t go by the rules, then, does she?”

  Now what in the hell does he mean by that?

  “You’d have to know her, to see how different she is.” After he’d said it, Larry didn’t like the sound of this, either. What in God’s name was happening to the conversation?

  “Her folks are pretty nice people,” came the voice from the front seat.

  As if, the tone added, Molly wasn’t.

  Larry was angry now. “Are they?” he said, deliberately doubtful.

  The driver, he sensed, almost looked back at him; the question must have threatened some set of standards, an opinion already solidified. There was a hint of suppressed wrath in the way the gloved hands gripped the wheel. What the talk might have gone to from that point, Larry never knew. He noticed all at once that another ca
r had drawn up beside them, preparing to pass, and that from it someone was looking at him.

  “Well, what do you know!” He grinned, waved back at the lifted hand.

  The driver threw a single startled glance at the other car, then turned his gaze to the road. The tires spun. The car seemed filled with a heavy silence. The other car gradually passed them and drew away.

  In the distance a high green sign indicated a service station. Larry pulled the tire close and moved over towards the door.

  Molly limped the rest of the distance to the highway and flagged a car, an antique but shiny Buick with three elderly ladies in it. She gave them the phone number at home, begged them to deliver a message to Uncle Florian. They listened and looked at her sympathetically; their faces were kind and concerned. One of them delicately suggested that Molly might want them to take her somewhere where she could wash her face and perhaps take an aspirin. Or at least have a cool drink of water.

  She shook her head, willing the Buick to spring into gear and take them quickly to the nearest phone. “I have to wait for someone.”

  Obviously they didn’t want to leave her. Her swollen eyes and shaking mouth, the air of wild impatience, scared them. They knew that something had happened down there by the lonely beach. They were also half afraid that she was going to tell them what it was. They would have liked to take her where she could lie down genteelly, where they could pat her wrists with cologne and give her sips of ice water.

  “Please,” Molly said, “just tell my uncle I need him terribly. My car keys are on the dresser. He’ll come at once.”

  The lady in the rear seat put a hand on the door. “Would you like me to wait here with you?”

  “No, no, thank you so much, but I’ll be all right!”

  The woman peered at the jacked-up Ford in the distance. “Are you all alone?”

  “Yes, I’m alone.”

  This was so plainly reassuring to the woman that Molly decided they thought she was being persecuted by some unmentionable lout they couldn’t see from here. The flat tire was the subterfuge of a scoundrel. Perhaps she was even in danger from a kidnaper! It was the sort of thing which would occur to a little old lady who probably looked under the bed every night.

  Molly thought, if I told them the truth they’d think I was crazy!

  They drove off, at last, and she went back to the Ford to wait for Uncle Florian. The sun westered, and the first hint of evening’s coolness came into the ocean breeze. She put an arm on the steering wheel and leaned her head on it. Larry had been gone a long, long time.

  He wasn’t coming back. Something had happened to him.

  Molly tried to look at the years ahead; but she couldn’t face them. If she couldn’t be with Larry she wanted to be dead. It was as simple as that.

  What was I worried about, why did I torment myself and Larry? Some silly detail about his being under age? Some nonsense I thought of as lasting forever? Why didn’t we go out of town, and write down a few harmless lies, and get married?

  She tried to control the panic, pin it down. What was its cause? Why was she so sure that Larry had met disaster, that some horrible plan had come to fruition? What was it about the car that had picked him up, the hatted figure of the driver, that she seemed to recognize?

  She beat her clenched fists on the wheel. I’m not crazy. I did know that car, that man . . . somehow.

  She heard a car, the crunch of tires on the weedy track, and turned. Through tears she saw her own convertible creeping along, Uncle Florian staring back at her through the windshield. He hated the car and drove it, when he had to, as if at any moment it might spring from under his control and dash its costly self to smithereens.

  He got out with a jump and hurried towards her. She was already out of the Ford. “Uncle Florian!”

  He comforted her. “No, no, don’t cry! Tell me about it.”

  She told him about the flat tire and Larry’s leaving, and the car that had picked him up.

  “I guess I don’t understand,” he said as if puzzled. “What’s wrong?”

  “He didn’t come back!”

  “Well, it takes a little time to get a tire fixed,” Uncle Florian said reasonably. “Suppose they’re busy at the service station. They can’t lose customers at the gas tanks, just to fix your tire. And maybe the tube can’t be repaired and he’s got to buy a new one. Does he have the money to do it?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, we’d better take a trip down the road and find out. Which way did he go?”

  “South.”

  “You want to drive?” Obviously he hoped she would.

  “Please drive, and I’ll watch the other cars. In case Larry’s in one of them, coming back.”

  “I can’t figure out what you think has happened to him.”

  “That man——” But there was no way she could put the conviction of loss and grief into words. She followed Uncle Florian to the convertible, got in beside him. As he drove, she searched faces. Sometimes the cars drove by too fast, or they were bunched together, or they whipped past on curves where she had only a glimpse. She began to be afraid. Larry might come back to the Ford, after all, and then he wouldn’t know what to think, when she was gone.

  She began to cry again, and that distracted Uncle Florian.

  He pulled over to the shoulder, a wide spot. “Look, baby. This is a big strapping kid you’re worrying about. He’s not walking in a dark alley somewhere, he’s out in broad daylight. He’s not drunk, or helpless, or stupid, or scared. Not from what I know of him. From what I know, I’d say he was damned well able to take care of himself. A hell of a lot more able than I am, for instance.”

  “He just won’t believe——”

  “He’ll believe, if somebody makes a funny move. Don’t you worry about that. Maybe he’s told you, and maybe he’s even told himself, that you’ve imagined this menace, or whatever it is.” Uncle Florian was patting her hand, wiping tears away with the handkerchief, anything to make her feel better. “But if this guy jumps him, or even looks at him cross-eyed, there’ll be fur flying.”

  She choked off the crying. “Let’s . . . go. I’ve got to find him.”

  “I’ve got to find that damned, tire,” Uncle Florian said. “I sure as hell will never get the Ford home without it.”

  Molly watched the mileage on the speedometer, not because she was interested in the ticking distances, but because it was better than noticing the sun, far in the west now, dropping down towards the sea. Where there were trees, their shadows lay across the highway in long, ragged streaks. When hills closed in the road, there seemed a sudden foretaste of dark.

  It’s going to be nighttime soon, she thought. Even the summer twilight won’t last forever. The day will end, the day Uncle Florian said was for loving and remembering. Night will come.

  Without Larry, night will be forever.

  She bent her head, choking back the agony, and then Uncle Florian said loudly, “Look, there it is!”

  She jerked erect. The high green sign glowed in the distance. GAS, it said. She leaned forward, putting her hands on the dash. Hope seemed to rush through her like a tide, carrying her up, up. Uncle Florian touched the brake pedal, turned the wheel. The heavy car slowed and turned smoothly from the highway into the graveled approach to the pumps. And then, in the next instant, emotion washed out of her and she was empty.

  Larry wasn’t here.

  It was a small place, very busy. There were cars at the pumps, and a couple of men in white uniforms were trying to take care of everything at once. Behind them was a small building, mostly of glass, brightly lit inside, and empty. Lots of boxes on shelves, candy and drink machines, a phone, a grease rack. But not the one she looked for.

  “Now don’t be nervous,” Uncle Florian said, opening his door. “Hold your horses while I check the can.”

  She didn’t wait for that. She jumped out and walked quickly around the small office. Behind was an open field where beans or so
mething had been harvested, acres of short brown stubble, beyond this the mountains turning purple in the late light.

  She looked at the high pale sky and despair shook her. She heard a door slam, then Uncle Florian’s voice, “Molly?”

  She turned back, hurried to where one of the white-uniformed men stood at the end of a set of pumps, making change from an open cash drawer. She touched the stiff white sleeve and he turned, his hand filled with bills, to look at her. He had bright blue eyes in a tanned face. There were sun-wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, a quirk to his lips, and some undefinable resemblance to Larry made her catch her breath.

  “I’m looking for a . . . a friend. He must have come in with a tire, to have it fixed. He’s young and blond, big, and he——”

  “Ma’am, I’m sorry—we’ve turned down six or seven. Just didn’t have time.”

  “Where did he go, then?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am.” He closed the drawer, started to move away. In desperate entreaty she followed. He began paying money in through an open car window, to a fat man who stared past him at Molly.

  “It’s terribly important. Did he go on in the same car?”

  The attendant took a damp cloth from a metal container beside the pump and began to wipe the fat man’s windshield. “I guess I don’t know that, either.” He must have seen the deadly pallor, the begging, trembling hands, for he paused and said kindly, “What was he like? Young and big? Wait a minute.” He was rubbing the rear-view mirror at the side of the windshield, his eyes crinkled up in their sockets. “Mmmm. He’d hitched a ride, is that it? Had the tire with him?”

  “Yes, yes, that’s Larry!”

  “He’s the one who asked how far to the next station.”

  “And did the man wait for him?”

  “I wish I could say, but we’ve been jumping like crazy here since early afternoon. I haven’t had time to keep track of nobody!”

  “Perhaps . . . well, maybe you could recall whether he went back out to the highway.” It could mean that the black car hadn’t waited, that Larry had hitched another ride!