A Stranger in My Grave

by Margaret Millar

“Leave me alone. Go away.”

  “All right. We’re leaving.”

  Their departure was marked by the same words as their arrival had been: Go away. Between the two, a woman had died and a monster had come to life.

  20

  Dust and tears, these are what I remember most about the day of your birth, your mother’s weeping, and the dust sifting in through locked windows and bolted doors and the closed draft of the chimney. . . .

  The drapes were drawn across all the windows as if there was no one at home, or the people who were at home didn’t want to advertise the fact. A car, unfamiliar to Daisy, was parked beside the garage. Pinata opened the door and examined the registration card while Daisy stood waiting under a eucalyptus tree that tow­ered a hundred feet above the house. The pungent odor of the tree’s wet bark, half bitter, half sweet, stung her nostrils.

  “It’s Juanita’s car,” he said. “Your father must be here.”

  “Yes. I thought he would be.”

  “You look pale. Are you feeling all right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I love you, Daisy.”

  “Love.” The sound of the word was like the scent of eucalyp­tus, half bitter, half sweet. “Why are you telling me that now?”

  “I wanted you to know, so that no matter what happens tonight in connection with your father or mother or Jim—”

  “An hour ago you were trying to get rid of me,” she said painfully. “Have you changed your mind?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I saw a woman die.” He couldn’t explain to her the shock he’d had of complete realization that this was the only life he was given to live. There would be no second chance, no certificate of merit to be awarded for waiting, no diploma for patience.

  She seemed to understand what he meant, without explanation. “I love you, too, Steve.”

  “Then everything will work out all right. Won’t it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “We don’t have time for guessing, Daisy.”

  “Everything will work out,” she said, and when he kissed her, she almost believed herself.

  She clung to his arm as they walked toward the house where the dream had begun and where it was now to end. The front door was unlocked. When she opened it and went into the foyer, there was no sound from the adjoining living room, but the silence was curiously alive; the walls seemed to be still echoing with noises of anger.

  Her mother’s sharp voice sliced the silence. “Daisy? Is that you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there anyone with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “We are having a private family discussion in here. You must ask our guest to excuse you. Immediately.”

  “I won’t do that.”

  “Your—your father is here.”

  “Yes,” Daisy said. “Yes, I know.”

  She went into the living room, and Pinata followed her.

  A small woman who looked like Daisy was huddled in a chair by the picture window, a handkerchief pressed tightly against her mouth as if to stem a bloody flow of words. Harker sat by him­self on the chesterfield, an unlit pipe clenched between his teeth. His glance at Daisy was brief and reproachful.

  Standing on the raised hearth, surveying the room like a man who’d just bought the place, was Fielding. Pinata realized imme­diately that Fielding was drunk on more than liquor, as if he’d been waiting for years for this moment of seeing his former wife cringing in fear before him. Perhaps this was his real motive for coming to San Félice, not any desire to help Daisy, but a thirst for revenge against Ada. Revenge was heady stuff; Fielding looked delirious, half mad.

  Daisy was crossing the room toward him, slowly, as if she wasn’t quite sure whether this strange man was her father or not. “Daddy?”

  “Yes, Daisy baby.” He seemed pleased, but he didn’t step off the raised hearth to go and meet her. “You’re as pretty as ever.”

  “Are you all right, Daddy?”

  “Certainly. Certainly I am. Never better.” He bent to touch her forehead lightly with his lips, then straightened up again quickly, as though he was afraid a usurper might steal his position of power. “So you’ve brought Mr. Pinata with you. That’s unfortu­nate, Daisy baby. This is entirely a private family affair, Pinata wouldn’t be interested.”

  “I was hired,” Pinata said, “to make an investigation. Until it’s concluded, or until I’m dismissed, I’m under Mrs. Harker’s orders.” He glanced at Daisy. “Do you want me to leave?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “You might regret it, Daisy baby,” Fielding said. “But then regrets are a part of life, aren’t they, Ada? Maybe the main part, eh? Some regrets, of course, are slower in coming than others, and harder to take. Isn’t that right, Ada?”

  Mrs. Fielding spoke through the handkerchief she held to her mouth. “You’re drunk.”

  “In wine is truth, old girl.”

  “Coming from you, truth is a dirty word.”

  “I know dirtier ones. Love, that’s the dirtiest of all, isn’t it, Ada? Tell us about it. Give us the lowdown.”

  “You’re a—an evil man.”

  “Don’t antagonize him, Ada,” Jim said quietly. “There’s noth­ing to be gained.”

  “Jim’s right. Don’t antagonize me, Ada, and maybe I’ll go away like a good lad without telling any tales. Would you like that? Sure you would. Only it’s too late. Some of your little tricks are catching up with you. My going away can’t stop them.”

  “If there were any tricks, they were necessary.” Her head had begun to shake, as if the neck muscles that held it up had sud­denly gone flabby. “I was forced to lie to Daisy. I couldn’t permit her to have children who would inherit certain—certain charac­teristics of her father.”

  “Tell Daisy about these characteristics. Name them.”

  “I—please, Stan. Don’t.”

  “She’s got a right to know about her old man, hasn’t she? You made a decision that affected her life. Now justify it.” Fielding’s mouth cracked open in a mirthless smile. “Tell her about all the little monsters she might have brought into the world if it hadn’t been for her wise, benevolent mother.”

  Daisy was standing with her back against the door, her eyes fixed, not on her father or mother, but on Jim. “Jim? What are they talking about, Jim?”

  “You’ll have to ask your mother.”

  “She was lying to me that day in the doctor’s office? It’s not true I can’t have children?”

  “No, it’s not true.”

  “Why did she do it? Why did you let her?”

  “I had to.”

  “You had to. Is that the only explanation you can offer me?” She crossed the room toward him, the rain dripping soundlessly from her coat onto the soft rug. “What about the girl, Juanita?”

  “I only met her once in my life,” he said. “I picked her up on the street and drove her three or four blocks to the Clinic. Deliber­ately. I knew who she was. I kept her talking in the car until you came out because I wanted you to see us together.”

  “Why?”

  “I intended to claim her child.”

  “You must have had a reason.”

  “No man would take a drastic step like that without having reasons.”

  “I can think of one,” she said in a brittle voice. “You wanted to make sure I kept on believing that our lack of children was my fault and not yours. You’re admitting now that it has been your fault, right from the beginning.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the reason you and my mother lied to me and that you claimed Juanita’s child was to make sure I’d never suspect you were the sterile one in our marriage.”

  He di
dn’t try to deny it, although he knew it was only a small portion of the truth. “That was a factor, yes. I didn’t originate the lie; your mother did. I went along with it when I found out— when it became necessary.”

  “Why did it become necessary?”

  “I had to protect your mother.”

  Mrs. Fielding sprang out of her chair like a runner at the sound of the starter’s gun. But there was nowhere to run; the course had no beginning and no ending. “Stop it, Jim. Let me tell her, please.”

  “You?” Daisy turned to face her mother. “I wouldn’t believe you if you told me it was Saturday night and raining outside.”

  “It is Saturday night and it is raining outside. You’d be a fool not to believe the facts just because they came from me.”

  “Tell me some facts, then.”

  “There’s a stranger present.” Mrs. Fielding glanced at Pinata, then at Fielding. “Two strangers. Must I talk in front of them? Can’t we wait until—”

  “I’ve done enough waiting. Mr. Pinata can be trusted to be dis­creet, and my father wouldn’t do anything to harm me.”

  Fielding nodded and smiled at her—”You bet I wouldn’t, Daisy baby”—but there was a derisive, cynical quality about the smile that worried Pinata because he couldn’t understand it. He wished the alcohol, and whatever other intoxicant was at work in Field­ing’s system, would wear off and leave him less sure of himself. One sign of its wearing off was already apparent, the fine tremor of Fielding’s hands, which he attempted to cover up by hiding them in his pockets.

  Mrs. Fielding had begun to talk again, her eyes on Daisy. “No matter what you think now, Daisy, Jim has done everything pos­sible for your happiness. Remember that. The first lie was mine. I’ve already told you why it was necessary—your children would be marked by a stigma that must not be passed on. I can’t talk about it in front of a stranger. Later, you and I will discuss it alone.” She took a long breath, wincing as if it hurt her lungs, or heart, to probe so deep. “Four years ago, without warning, I received a telephone call from a man I hadn’t seen for a very long time and never expected to see again. His name was Carlos Camilla, and Stan and I had known him as Curly when we were first married in New Mexico. He was a close friend to us both. You’ve always accused me of race prejudice, Daisy. But in those days Camilla was our friend; we went through bad times together and helped each other.

  “He didn’t mince words when he called. He said he had only a short time to live and needed money for his funeral. He reminded me of—of old times, and I—well, I agreed to meet him and give him some money.”

  “Two thousand dollars?” Pinata said.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a lot to pay for memories of old times, Mrs. Fielding.”

  “I felt an obligation to help him,” she said. “He sounded so ter­ribly ill and broken, I knew he must be telling the truth about his approaching death. I asked him if I could send him the money instead of meeting him, but he said there wasn’t time, and he had no address for me to send it to.”

  “Where did you get the money?”

  “From Jim. I knew he had a lot of cash in the safe at his office. I explained the situation to him, and he thought it would be advisable to pay what Camilla asked.”

  “Advisable?” It seemed, to Pinata, a curious word to use under the circumstances.

  “Jim is a very generous man.”

  “Obviously there were reasons for his generosity?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were they?”

  “I must refuse to answer.”

  “All right,” Pinata said. “You went to meet Camilla. Where?”

  “At the end of Greenwald Street, near the signalman’s shack. It was very late and dark. I couldn’t see anyone, and I thought I had misunderstood his instructions. I was about to leave when I heard him call my name, and a shadow stepped out from behind a bush. ‘Come here and look at me,’ he said. He lit a match and held it in front of his face. I’d known him when he was young and lively and handsome; the man in the matchlight was a living corpse, emaci­ated, misshapen. I couldn’t speak. There were so many things to say, but I couldn’t speak. I gave him the money, and he said, ‘God bless you, Ada, and God bless me, Carlos.’”

  The funereal words seemed, to Pinata, to contain a curious echo of another ceremony: I, Ada, take thee, Carlos. . .

  “I thought I heard someone coming,” Mrs. Fielding went on. “I panicked and ran back to my car and drove off. When I returned to the house, the phone was ringing. It was a woman.”

  “Mrs. Rosario?”

  “Yes, although she didn’t tell me her name then. She said she had found Carlos dead and that I had killed him. She wouldn’t lis­ten to my denials, my protests. She just kept talking about her daughter, Juanita, who needed taking care of because she was going to give birth to a fatherless child. She seemed obsessed with this single idea of money for her daughter and the baby. I said I would call her back, that I had to consult someone. She gave me her phone number. Then I went to Jim’s room and woke him up.”

  She paused, looking at Daisy half in sorrow, half in reproach. “You’ll never know how many times Jim has taken a burden off my shoulders, Daisy. I told him the situation. We both agreed that it was impossible for me to be dragged through a police investigation. Too many suspicious things would come out: that I knew Camilla, that I’d given him two thousand dollars. I couldn’t face it. I realized I had to keep Mrs. Rosario quiet. The problem was how to pay her so that even if someone found out about the payments, the real reason for them would remain secret. The only possible way was to concoct a false reason and make it known to someone in a key position, like Adam Burnett.”

  “And the false reason,” Pinata said, “was support for Juanita’s child?”

  “Yes. It was Mrs. Rosario who inadvertently suggested it by insisting that she wanted no money for herself, only for Juanita. So we decided that was how it would be done. Jim was to claim the child and pay for its support. It seemed, in a way, like a stroke of fate that the lie should fit in so perfectly with the lie I was forced to tell Daisy in the first place. It was all arranged in Adam Burnett’s office the next day, by Adam and Jim and Mrs. Rosario. Adam was never told the truth. He even wanted to fight Juanita’s ‘claim’ in court, but Jim managed to convince him that he must keep quiet. The next step was convincing Daisy. That was easy enough. Jim found out through Mrs. Rosario that Juanita was to go to the Clinic late that afternoon. He picked her up in his car and kept her talking in the parking lot until Daisy came out and saw them together. Then he made his false confession to her.

  “Cruel? Yes, it was a cruel thing to do, Daisy. But not as cruel as others, perhaps—and not as cruel as some of the real tricks life plays on us. The next days were terrible ones. Although the coro­ner’s inquest ruled Camilla’s death was a suicide, the police were still investigating the source of the money found on him and still trying to establish who Camilla was. But time passed and noth­ing happened. Camilla was buried, still unknown.”

  Pinata said, “Did you ever visit his grave, Mrs. Fielding?”

  “I passed it several times when we went to leave flowers for Jim’s parents.”

  “Did you leave flowers for Camilla, too?”

  “No, I couldn’t. Daisy was always with me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I—I wanted her along.”

  “Was there any display of emotion on these occasions?”

  “I cried sometimes.”

  “Wasn’t Daisy curious about the reason for your tears?”

  “I told her that I had a cousin buried there, of whom I’d been very fond.”

  “What was this cousin’s name?”

  “I. . .”

  Fielding’s sudden fit of coughing sounded like stifled laughter. When he
had finished, he wiped his eyes with his coat sleeve. “Ada has a very sentimental nature. She weeps at the drop of a dead cousin. The only difficulty in this instance is that neither of her parents had any siblings. So where did the cousin come from, Ada?”

  She looked at him, her mouth moving in a soundless curse.

  Pinata said, “There was no cousin, Mrs. Fielding?”

  “I—no.”

  “The tears were for Camilla?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “He died alone and was buried alone. I felt guilty.”

  “Guilt as strong as that,” Pinata said, “makes me wonder whether Mrs. Rosario’s accusation against you might not have some basis in fact.”

  “I had nothing whatever to do with Camilla’s death. He killed himself, with his own knife. That was the coroner’s verdict.”

  “This afternoon I talked to Mr. Fondero, the mortician in charge of Camilla’s body. It’s his opinion that Camilla’s hands were too severely crippled by arthritis to have used that knife with the necessary force.”

  “When I left him,” Mrs. Fielding said steadily, “he was still alive.”

  “But when Mrs. Rosario arrived—and let’s assume that her coming was the noise you heard which frightened you away—he was dead. Suppose Fondero’s opinion about Camilla’s incapacity to handle the knife is correct. As far as we know, only two people were with Camilla that night, you and Mrs. Rosario. Do you think Mrs. Rosario killed her brother?”

  “It’s more reasonable than to think I did.”

  “What would her motive have been?”

  “Perhaps a deliberate scheme to get money for the girl. I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her, not me?”

  “I can’t ask her,” Pinata said. “Mrs. Rosario died tonight of a heart attack.”

  “Oh God.” She dropped back into the chair, her hands press­ing against her chest. “Death. It’s beginning to surround me. All this death, and nothing to take the curse off it, no new life com­ing to take its place. This is my punishment, no new life.” She gazed at Fielding with dull eyes. “Revenge is what you wanted, isn’t it, Stan? Well, you have it. You might as well leave now. Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of.”