“Doctor—doctor, I can’t breathe.”
“You’re trying too hard. Relax.”
“I will. I’ll relax. I won’t—choke?”
“No. The attack’s nearly over. See for yourself. Put your fingers here on your wrist. There, feel your pulse?”
“I guess so.”
“It’s not much faster than mine.”
“It isn’t?”
“Of course not.”
Gwen’s breathing had steadied as soon as her attention was no longer focused on the necessity of breathing. Charlotte often encountered the same reaction in children who were afraid to go to sleep because they might stop breathing.
Gwen’s head sank back among the lace-trimmed pillows. Charlotte saw, then, the bruise on the side of her neck, a recent bruise, still blue, about the size of a thumbnail.
Gwen saw her staring at the bruise, and she touched it with her finger, gently. “He tried to kill me. He said he would, someday, and now he’s tried. But he got frightened, perhaps the dogs frightened him with their growling. He let go of me suddenly and went up to his room and I haven’t seen him since. It was the night before last, just about this time.”
“The bruise isn’t serious.” She thought, not as serious as the bullet holes in Eddie’s forehead, the acrid choking water that Violet had swallowed in her fight for air. No, the bruise wasn’t serious, but the intent behind it was. She remembered what Lewis had said the last time she’d seen him: “I haven’t been drinking. Or at least only enough for medicinal purposes, to keep me from strangling my wife.” She wanted to say something to reassure both herself and Gwen, but all she could think of was, “People do odd things in moments of anger.”
“He wasn’t angry. I did nothing to make him angry. He came home that night, and I said, ‘Hello darling, where have you been?’ And he said, ‘In hell, I’ve been in hell.’ I was so surprised. Lewis always tells me where he’s been.”
No, he doesn’t, you fool, you pathetic fool. You make me hate myself, hate Lewis, hate life itself.
Gwen said softly, “You know my husband.”
“Yes.”
“You know him as he appears to you, but you can’t know him as he is. He’s a cruel man. He has no feelings. Other people are stones to him; he can pick them up or toss them aside or kick them around. He never thinks they’re human and can feel pain and despair just as he can.”
He’s not like that, Charlotte wanted to protest. He’s a good man, but he’s been warped by your narrowness, soured by your eternal sweetness. Don’t blame Lewis, or yourself either. It’s nobody’s fault. Fate tricked you both, and me, and even Easter. A four-ply trickery.
Gwen’s tiny mouth was twisted in perplexity. “It’s such a funny kind of cruelty he has. The more I do to please him, the more he despises me. He looks at me across the table at dinner and my heart turns cold. I try to be bright and amusing the way wives are supposed to. I even read a book about little stories to tell and interesting facts and things like that. But . . .” One slender arm rose and fell, in a gesture of futility. “The funny things I say aren’t funny, and the stupid things sound so much stupider when he’s watching me like that—as if I were a worm he’d like to crush under his heel.”
“You’ve never told me any of this before.”
“I have my pride,” Gwen said stiffly, “my reputation.”
“Of course.”
“No one will ever take that away from me, though Lewis tries.” She fussed with the pillows; they were tiny, scaled to her size, like everything else in the room. A little girl’s room, Charlotte thought, looking at the teddy bear propped on the chifforobe, the smiling French doll sitting at the window. The years were passing, but the little girl was afraid to grow up. Here, in her own room, she was immune to time. Though she no longer played with the teddy bear, it was there ready to be picked up, its soft furry body a comfort, a symbol of security and innocence. But the little girl was ageing, and with age came fear. Fear of the dark, fear of stopping breathing; other nameless fears that her heart knew—and it beat in futile frenzy like the heart of a frightened bird.
“I know you don’t believe that Lewis tried to kill me,” Gwen said. “But he did, and I know why. He has another woman. Why, you look surprised, Dr. Keating, almost as surprised as I was when I found out. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, though. It happens in the best of families. The husband gets tired of the wife and takes up with anyone he can find, a waitress or a shopgirl or any kind of cheap slut with no more morals than a cat.”
Charlotte’s face was like stone.
“Do I sound bitter, Dr. Keating? Well, I am. It’s terrible, it’s a terrible thing knowing about this woman, yet not knowing who she is so I could go and talk to her, make her realize.”
“Realize what?”
Gwen blinked. “What? Well, that she’s breaking up a home, a marriage.”
She’s not, I’m not, breaking up anything, Charlotte thought. The home belongs to you and the dogs, and the marriage was broken long before you introduced me to Lewis, here in this very house. Nor am I a slut. I’m a respectable woman; I work hard, and when I’m lucky I even do some good.
“I think that’s where he is now,” Gwen said. “With her. I didn’t tell the police that when I called this morning. I was ashamed to. I just told them that my husband was missing. Then, late this afternoon, a policeman came here to the house. He said he wanted to look around, to see if he could find any evidence of where Lewis might have gone. He had an unusual name—Easter. Do you know anything about police work, Dr. Keating?”
“Very little.”
“I just wondered. It seemed to me that this policeman behaved very oddly. He went up to Lewis’ study and I heard him typing. Isn’t that odd? Why would he want to use Lewis’ typewriter?”
“I don’t know,” Charlotte said. But he had a reason, he always has a reason.
“Then when he came downstairs again he asked me all kinds of funny questions.”
“Funny?”
“I thought they were. He asked about any trips that Lewis and I have taken since Christmas. Well, of course, I don’t take trips. There’s my heart, for one thing, and for another, I love my little home. I’m happy here. I don’t need the excitement that Lewis seems to crave. . . . I told the policeman that. He said he wanted to know about the little trips and holidays that Lewis took because Lewis might have gone to one of the same places again. People repeat themselves, he said.” She twisted a strand of her fair hair with thin, nervous fingers. “I didn’t tell him that Lewis choked me. I have my pride.”
There was a long silence. Charlotte thought of Easter, prowling around Lewis’ study, his eyes sharpened by hate. . . . Easter, waiting for her at home, perhaps wandering out to the kitchen and from there seeing the light in the garage.
“If I knew where he is,” Gwen said, “I could sleep, I could stop worrying like this. But he’s been acting so strange nearly all week. The last dinner we had together two nights ago he hardly spoke at all. I was trying to make conversation so that Mrs. Peters wouldn’t suspect anything was wrong—she’s the cook and she loves to gossip. Well, I’d just read in the paper about that girl who drowned herself and I mentioned it to Lewis because I thought he’d be interested, but he told me to shut up, right in front of Mrs. Peters. . . . That was a terrible thing, about the girl.”
“Yes.”
“I wonder, did she—suffer?”
“She must have.”
“But it was quick, wasn’t it? Of course. It must have been. Very quick. Oh, I hate to see things suffer. I could never be a doctor, like you. But I guess doctors get used to seeing suffering and death.”
“In a sense.”
“I never could. I’m too sensitive.” Her lower lip began to tremble. “At least the girl is dead. She’s out of things now. She has no more troubles. Oh, I’m so t
ired. So awfully tired.”
“I’ll give you a sleeping capsule.”
Gwen’s eyes widened in quick panic. “No. No, I won’t take anything. I must be alert, in case he comes back, in case he tries . . .”
“There’s little danger of that. But I could call Mrs. Peters and ask her to stay with you for tonight.”
“No. She has her own family, her own worries. Doctor—Dr. Keating, what would you do if you were in my place?”
“I don’t know. Go to a hotel, perhaps.”
“But the dogs. There’s no one to look after them.”
“I can’t advise you anyway,” Charlotte said slowly. “Personal problems can’t always be worked out by objective reasoning. What I would do might be the opposite of what would be good for you to do.”
“That’s right, isn’t it? My, you’re so sensible and intelligent! I wish you knew my husband better. He likes intelligent women, maybe because I’m so stupid.” One corner of her mouth curved in a sad little smile. “I wish I had everything under control in my private life, the way you must have. I bet you have no problems at all.”
For Charlotte, it was the final irony. She looked at the French doll on the window seat. Its painted smile was knowing.
20
Easter was waiting for her. There was no need to ask him if he had found Voss and Eddie: The garage was dark.
He looked at her across the room. All the lamps were still burning and every line and angle of his face was distinct, grim.
“You’ve got a bad case of trouble, Charlotte.”
In silence she went to the big window where Lewis’ chair was, and stared down at the lights of the city. It was only five nights ago that she’d stood in this same place and wondered which of the city lights belonged to Violet. She had told Lewis about Violet that night, she’d said, “Lewis, I think I made a mistake.”
Well, the mistake had grown, cancerously; its wild, malignant cells had spread from life to life until it covered them all, Violet and Eddie, Voss and his wife and the old man Tiddles; Easter and Lewis and Gwen and Mrs. Reyerling. Her mistake had infected each of them, but its final victim was herself, Charlotte Keating.
She said, without turning, “Have you reported it?”
“Not yet.”
“You will, though.”
“I have to.”
“I suppose you know it will mean the end of my life here, my work.”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes. The lids felt dry and dusty. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? I meant only to help Violet when I drove down to Olive Street that night. My duty seemed so clear, so inescapable. I didn’t want to go to that house. I was afraid of it. I remember thinking so many things had happened there that one more wouldn’t even be noticed. I was wrong. I’ve done quite a few wrong things, I suppose; pushed the wrong buttons, knocked on the wrong doors.”
“You still have a chance,” Easter said, “if you can find Ballard.”
“Do you hate him so much you must try to drag him into this?”
“He’s not big enough to hate. And he’s getting smaller by the minute.”
“You talk so oddly.”
“It will make sense if you’ll listen. Or don’t you want to listen?”
“I’m not sure. I’m—mixed up. All these hints about Lewis . . .”
“I’ve tried to let you down easy, Charlotte. You wouldn’t come down. You were treading clouds, still are. When a cloud gets too heavy, it rains. Stormy weather.”
“Talk straight, please.”
“Trying to,” Easter said. “Ballard didn’t tell you he knew Violet?”
“He didn’t know her.”
“He did. He sent her to you.”
“No! I won’t believe it!”
“You must. It’s true. The child was his. He sent her to you knowing how you felt about people in a jam, hoping you’d help Violet get rid of the child, help Violet and save his skin at the same time.”
“No.” The feeble denial stuck in her throat. “He told me—the night I met him on the breakwater—he said he didn’t even know Violet. I believed him. He was telling the truth, I’m sure of it.”
“He may have been telling the truth, as far as he knew it. Maybe he didn’t remember the girl; maybe he never even knew her name, until he saw her picture in the paper the next day, her picture and the name of the little town she came from. He knew then.”
There was a long silence, broken only by the ticking of the clock on the mantel, the passing of the restless minutes.
“I’m not guessing,” Easter said. “I know he sent Violet to you because. your name and address on the card found in your purse were written on the typewriter in Ballard’s study.”
“You’re framing him. You’re manufacturing evidence against him.”
“I don’t operate like that,” he said flatly, “even for the love of a lady. Want more proof?”
“No.”
“You could use it.” He took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and opened it for her to see. It was a photostatic copy of a sheet from the register of the Rose Court Motel, Ashley, Oregon, C. Vincent Rawls, Owner and Manager. Date, Feb. 26/49. Name, L. B. Ballard. Address, 480 Corona del Mar, Salinda, California. Make of car, Cadillac, License, California 17Y205.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the name on the photostat. It had been written very carelessly and quickly, and she wasn’t sure whether the writing was Lewis’ or not. She said, “It doesn’t look exactly like Lewis’ writing.”
“It is.”
“And it proves nothing except that he stopped at Ashley for a night.”
“On February twenty-sixth.”
She didn’t reply, though she knew the significance of the date. It was the beginning of July now, and Violet had been four months gone with child when she died. But how could it have happened? Lewis wasn’t like that at all, Charlotte thought. He would never have looked at Violet—she was young enough to be his daughter, young and ignorant and not even pretty; and Lewis was a respectable man, a little stolid, a man who valued his place in the community and his reputation. Lewis and Violet. The thought made her sick. It stuck in her throat; it couldn’t be swallowed; it couldn’t be coughed up. Lewis and Violet. And the baby boy that had died with Violet was Lewis’ child; it might even have grown to look like him, walk like him—the son that he’d always wanted, now in a garbage can in the morgue or already burned to dust in an incinerator. Poor Lewis, she thought. But running through her pity was an iron stripe of bitterness.
Easter was watching her, narrow-eyed. “I’m not interested in bringing Ballard to trial on moral grounds. That’s woman’s work. What he does with his spare weekends in Ashley or Cucamonga is no business of mine.”
“You’ve managed to make it your business. Do you also break into locked hotel rooms and peer over transoms and creep under . . .”
“I’m after a murderer,” Easter said. “Not a four-bit Romeo.”
She leaned her forehead against the window to steady herself. The lights of the city whirled, slowed, stopped. “Lewis is neither,” she said at last.
“He’s both.”
“No. You have no proof.”
“I can’t prove that he killed Violet. But he’s made it easier for me by shooting Voss and O’Gorman and leaving the bodies in your garage.”
She turned to face him. “He wouldn’t do such a thing. Even if he were desperate, he wouldn’t involve me in such a mess. He loves me. You can laugh at that, but it’s true.
He loves me.”
“He loves himself, too, and that’s the big passion. You’re running a poor second, Charlotte.”
She repeated stubbornly, “He would never do such a thing.”
“I admit it’s a pretty stupid idea to drive a convertible containing two bodies into your girlfriend’s gar
age. But I figure that he didn’t expect you back for a few days, and he intended to use the time to think himself out of the jam. When you look at it like that, Ballard was playing it smart. Your garage was practically the one safe place in town where he could hide the bodies until he planned a way to dispose of them.”
Lewis and Violet. Lewis and Voss. Lewis and Eddie. Three deaths already, and Easter with death in his eyes.
Easter’s mouth moved with a question, but she hadn’t heard it.
“I repeat,” Easter said. “Ballard had a key to your garage?”
“I left the door open.”
“But he had a key?”
“I don’t see what difference it . . .”
“Did he have a key?”
“Yes!”
Both their voices were raised, but Easter’s had lowered in pitch, and Charlotte’s was high and shrill.
“Do I have to squeeze everything out of you?” Easter said. “Don’t you know I’m trying to help you?”
“I don’t want your kind of help.”
“You can’t be choosey at this stage of the game. You’d better take all the help you can get while you can get it. You’ve got a car with two very dead men out in your garage, and I have to report it. I have to report it to the chief, to the D.A., to the sheriff. I should have reported it half an hour ago, but I gave you a chance. Where’s Ballard?”
“I don’t know.”
“And even if you knew . . . ?”
“I wouldn’t tell you.”
“The loyal-little-woman role, eh?” An ugly smile crossed his face. “Well, come on, loyal little woman, I have something to show you.”
“I don’t have to . . .”
“Come on. I want to see that loyalty explode right in your two blind eyes.”
She felt a surge of violence. She wanted to reach out and hit him. It was the first time since childhood that she had wanted to strike someone, to hurt. “You’re—you’re a contemptible . . .”
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