The Irrepressible Peccadillo

by Fletcher Flora

  “Well, you can hardly expect to drink gimlet after gimlet for hour after hour without having something go on in your stomach. What you need is a big dose of kaopectate.”

  “Like hell I do.”

  “Sugar, you musn’t be cowardly about it. When you deliberately get your stomach in an uproar, you must be prepared to take something for it afterward. A dose of kaopectate is good for anyone at times.”

  “Not for me. I don’t want any God-damn kaopectate, and I refuse to have any.”

  “Nonsense. You’ll take a big dose immediately, and later you’ll be glad.”

  She got up and went into the bathroom again and rattled around and came back with a bottle and a spoon.

  “Where in the devil did you get the spoon?” I said. “Have you moved the kitchen upstairs?”

  “Of course not. That’s ridiculous. I always keep a spoon in the medicine cabinet for emergencies. When you have a husband who swills gin by the gallon, you never know when it will be needed.”

  “Well, I know when it will not be needed, and now is when. Take that stuff away from here.”

  “Don’t be difficult, sugar. There’s no need to be contentious because your belly hurts.”

  “I’m being contentious because I’m determined not to take any kaopectate.”

  “That’s absurd. Sit up, now, and open your mouth. Don’t make me spill it.”

  She poured a spoonful of the stuff and poked it at me. In order to avoid getting soaked, I sat up and opened my mouth and permitted her to pour it down my throat. The taste of kaopectate is really not so bad as tastes go, but I was excessively offended by it this time because it was unnecessary, my claim to a sick stomach being a plain lie.

  “There you are,” she said. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “Bad enough.”

  “You’ll be feeling much better shortly. Wait and see.”

  “There being nothing else I can do, I will.”

  She went away with the bottle and spoon and came back without them. Sitting down on the edge of the bed in the same place and position, she watched me for a while without speaking, and I began to feel uncomfortable.

  “Are you feeling any better yet?” she said.

  “Not yet.”

  “It’s too bad of you to make such a pig of yourself. It’s evident that nothing of interest can be expected of you tonight. You’ve spoiled everything.”

  “I might point out that matters would have been different if you had been willing to give up Rose Pogue and Zoroaster.”

  “I suppose I must treat you like a baby and be with you every minute. It does seem, however, that you should be able to behave yourself without being under constant surveillance. The wonder is, I suppose, that you weren’t into more mischief than you were.”

  “It would be impossible for me to be in more mischief than I was, and the mischief I was in was mischief enough, believe me.”

  “What do you mean? I don’t like the sound of it. What did you do besides drink and drink and get your belly in an uproar? What else?”

  I had not intended to go off in this direction, and I was simply gone before I knew it. I scrapped deception without considering the consequences, and I think the reason I did it was because I had to have a confidant even at the risk of losing a wife. I admit freely that I just wasn’t made for the solitary bearing of bad trouble and grim possibilities.

  “What else I did,” I said, “was meet Beth Thatcher in the old bandstand in Dreamer’s Park. At least I went there to meet her, although I didn’t, as it turned out. I had been drinking gimlets and listening to Death and Transfiguration, and then the phone rang, and I answered it, and it was Beth. She said she was leaving tomorrow and wanted to see me tonight to say a proper good-by, and a lot of things were working together to make me go. She was the one who suggested Dreamer’s Park, and I went there to meet her, but I didn’t because she was dead.”

  I was still sitting up against the headboard in the position I had assumed for taking kaopectate, and she was still sitting on the edge of the bed in her blue shortie with white rosebuds, and we sat there looking at each other after my confession, and I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to get absolution at the moment, if ever. She didn’t appear to be exceptionally angry, hardly at all, but I wasn’t fooled by this, having known her pretty well for some time, and she was probably thinking, in spite of her deceptive, serene gravity, what a pleasure it would be to attend my funeral after having personally got me ready for it.

  “As for me,” she said at last, “I am not so concerned with your having found her dead as I am with what you would have done if you hadn’t.”

  “There’s no use speculating about that, so far as I can see. She was dead, and nothing was done.”

  “On the contrary, there’s a great deal of use in speculating about it. One could very easily reach some interesting conclusions, although the range of possibilities of what could be done in a dark park is so broad that it almost staggers the imagination. One thing seems certain to begin with. It would scarcely have been necessary to meet there to say a proper good-by. It would be, in my judgment, far more appropriate to an improper good-by.”

  “Oh, come off, Sid. Beth’s dead, and I’m in trouble, and all you can think about is some damn peccadillo that didn’t even happen.”

  “You’re in trouble, all right, sugar. You’re perfectly right there. Unless, that is, you can explain satisfactorily why it was necessary to say good-by in a dark park instead of some place like a hotel lobby or a lighted street corner or the reading room of the YWCA.”

  “Damn it, there was nothing of any consequence intended. You know how this town is, and what would have been said about us if we had been seen together even in a crowded tabernacle. We merely wanted to avoid gossip, that’s all, and Dreamer’s Park was just a place that occurred to her and seemed reasonable to me because it’s a place we had been before, a long time ago, and a place where couples still go now and then.”

  “I know that couples go there, and I know what for. Not, as a regular thing, to say a proper good-by. Your explanation, however, is just ridiculous enough to seem characteristic, and I’ll consider accepting it. But now, I suppose, I had better consider the rest of the matter. You’ve made a mess of things by drinking gin and sneaking off in the night to meet someone who turned up dead, and it’s plain that I must consider what’s to be done about it. Isn’t it expected of a person who finds a body to report it to the police or someone?”

  “Yes, it is. It’s expected.”

  “Then why, may I ask, didn’t you do what was expected?”

  “Because she was dead from having been killed. Because I wanted to avoid offering myself up to suspicion of having killed her. It would probably be difficult to explain to a cop how I just happened to be in that damn park at such an hour.”

  “That’s true. It’s even difficult to explain it to me.”

  “Oh, well, I’ve told you the truth. I couldn’t tell it to anyone else without stirring up a lot of wrong ideas.”

  “I’m not so sure your confidence in me is justified, sugar. You have certainly stirred up a lot of ideas, at any rate, wrong or not. Wouldn’t it have shown you were innocent if you reported finding the body?”

  “Not necessarily. They’d be sure to think it might be a trick.”

  “I doubt that you’d be seriously considered a suspect, sugar. A man who is too cowardly to take a dose of kaopectate would hardly commit a murder.”

  “That may be true, but the police are not aware of the intimate details of my relationship with kaopectate.”

  “How was she killed, by the way?”

  “I don’t know. I only saw her for a few seconds by the light of a match, and I didn’t see any wound or anything.”

  “Then how the hell do you know she was killed at all?”

  “I�
�ve thought about it, and it seems probable.”

  “I agree that it does. Dreamer’s Park in the middle of the night is hardly a place where one would go deliberately to die naturally. Do you know what I think?”

  “No. What?”

  “I think that there is nothing to be done except let things work out as they will. Perhaps everything will be settled without any great unpleasantness to anyone except the murderer, if they catch him, and if bad comes to worse, you are at least a lawyer and can defend yourself competently.”

  “Thanks. That’s very reassuring.”

  “How are you feeling now?”

  “Cheerful and confident. I always feel cheerful and confident after finding a body under incriminating circumstances.”

  “I mean your stomach, sugar.”

  “Oh. My stomach’s all right. It’s fine.”

  “You see? Kaopectate works wonders.”

  She went over and turned off the little light on her dressing table and came back and lay down beside me in the darkness. I could hear her breathing evenly, and smell the light sweet scent of her, and after a while feel the soft warmth of her, and we lay there for a while quietly before she spoke again.

  “Sugar,” she said, “is it possible that you killed her after all?”

  “No.”

  “One could conceivably believe it.”

  “A few minutes ago you said that one couldn’t.”

  “I know, but I’ve been thinking it over, and I’ve decided that it’s possible. After all, I am as unlikely a murderer as you, and if she were here alive at this moment, I’m sure I would kill her with pleasure.”

  CHAPTER 6

  I woke early after going to sleep late. Sid was still asleep on her side, curled like a cold child in a sprinkling of white rosebuds, and I got out of bed quietly and stood for a minute watching her, and I was sorry for what had happened, and I wished that it hadn’t, but it had. There was a bad taste in my mouth, and an ache between my eyes. Outside, in the bright light of morning, a cardinal was screeching his pointed red head off, and I remembered a book about birds that I used to have when I was a kid that said the call of the cardinal was telling everyone to cheer up, cheer up, and I thought to myself now, listening to this one, Like hell I will.

  I went into the bathroom and bathed and shaved and brushed, and then I returned to the bedroom and dressed, and all the while Sid kept on sleeping on her side. It seemed to me that she was a little too perfectly the picture of sleeping, her body so still and her breath so measured, and I wondered if she was only pretending, as I had tried to do last night, until I was gone the hell away. I didn’t have the heart to blame her if she was, and if there had been any feasible and physical way to accomplish it, I’d have gone the hell away from myself. Since there was none, I decided that I would at least find myself a little more tolerable if I were full of hot coffee, and so I went downstairs to the kitchen and put on the pot.

  I drank the coffee black, two cups, after which I went out into the hall to the foot of the stairs and stood listening for some sound of life above, but there wasn’t any. There didn’t seem to be anything left to do but go, and so I went, walking, and it was still pretty early when I reached my office. It was a substantial hour before Millie was scheduled to report, and it would probably be longer than that this morning because of the engineer last night. This meant that I would have a considerable while to spend with myself, who had come with me in spite of not being wanted, and I spent it watching the Rexall sign across the street and wondering when Beth would be found, if she hadn’t been found already, and who would find her if someone else hadn’t. An hour and a half had passed when Millie came, half an hour late, and it took her ten minutes more to get from her desk to mine. She looked fairly fresh and alert, and smug enough to justify the assumption that something pleasant had recently happened to her.

  “Good morning, Mr. Jones,” she said.

  “Is it?” I said. “Or is it afternoon?”

  “Oh, oh.” She cocked her red head and looked at me warily. “You’ve got bags under your eyes.”

  “So have you.”

  “I was up all hours. Were you?”

  “Never mind. How was the engineer?”

  “Determined. Original, too. He was interesting and challenging but not entirely successful. I think he’ll be back to try again.”

  “Next time, give in. That way you’ll get to bed earlier and to work on time.”

  “Well, aren’t we sour this morning! What the hell happened to you last night?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? Then that explains everything. That’s the worst kind of night of all.”

  In my opinion, she was wrong, and I could have cited instances of recent happenings to support my opinion, but I didn’t feel like continuing the discussion. Having had the last word, to which she was welcome, she went back to her desk in the outer office, and a few minutes later I could hear the busy sound of her typewriter. The morning got going, much as other mornings had been getting going for something like seven years, and by ten-fifteen, at which time Millie took a break for coffee in the Hotel Carson coffee shop, I had consulted an elderly citizen about the terms of his will, conducted a long telephone conversation with an insurance investigator about the conditions of an accident in which a client of mine was involved, and had undertaken to get a waiver on the three-day waiting period for a young couple who had a good reason for wanting to get married in a hurry. When Millie returned at ten-forty, ten minutes late, I was doing some desk work on the defense of a local tavern owner who had been caught in his back room with his dice showing. It wasn’t much of a case, and there wasn’t much of a defense, except that the tavern owner was good to his mother, and this appeal was somewhat compromised by the fact that mother herself had been shooting craps in the back room when the cops moved in.

  Millie came on directly into my office, and I could see at once by her glittering eyes that she had been stimulated during her absence by a hell of a lot more than caffeine.

  “The most shocking thing has happened,” she said. “I heard all about it in the coffee shop.”

  “Shocking things are happening all the time everywhere,” I said. “Fighting in Africa. Fighting in Laos. Firing squads in Cuba. Men in orbit here and there. The whole God-damn world in orbit. To what particularly shocking thing that you learned all about in the coffee shop are you referring?”

  “Oh, well, I keep forgetting that you’re an important educated lawyer and are not interested in anything less than a world event.” She hooked half of her bottom on the edge of my desk and inspected the fingernails of her right hand. “This is only local, of course, but it might turn into some work for you. A fat fee, I mean. Judging from last month’s receipts, you could probably use it.”

  “I’m intrigued. What local event that might turn into work?”

  “You remember Beth Webb Thatcher? I think you used to know her.”

  “You know damn well I used to know her. I used to go with her fairly regularly. In fact, exclusively. I used to think for a while that I was going to marry her, but I didn’t, and I’m glad. This is all ancient history.”

  “Well, now she’s dead. This is modern history. In fact, as the saying goes, it’s current events. This morning a couple of kids went into Dreamer’s Park to play, and after a while they got around to playing in the old bandstand, and there she was. Beth. Dead. They ran home and told their parents, who called the cops, who went out there and discovered that someone had slipped a long, thin blade into her from behind, and she had died of it. Just imagine. All this was happening while an engineer was happening to me and nothing at all was happening to you.”

  I thought I was prepared for it, but it made me sick. I guess I showed it, pallor or something, for Millie unhooked her bottom from the desk and came around and hooked it on the arm of my chair and put an arm aro
und my shoulders. She made little repentant noises in her throat.

  “I’m sorry, Gid,” she said. “I’m just a bitch, that’s what I am. I hope I get cancer of the tongue from smoking unfiltered cigarettes.”

  “Think nothing of it,” I said. “It’s no more than the natural shock of learning that someone you once went with exclusively with the intention of marrying has died suddenly from having a long, thin blade slipped into her from behind.”

  “You’re a good boss and an understanding fellow,” she said, “and I love you.”

  “I’m all in favor of that,” I said. “If there’s anything I need at the moment it’s love.”

  “Shall I lock the door?” she said.

  “Well, no,” I said. “It’s platonic love I need.”

  I went on sitting there, pale or something, and she went on sitting there beside me, hooked on the arm, with her arm around me. I was grateful for the arm, grateful for her bright red head and all the rest of her, and even grateful for Plato, who gave it a name and kept it decent.

  “Who do you suppose did it?” she said.

  “I don’t know. Local legend gives me a kind of reason, but I’m innocent. That’s all I know on short notice.”

  “It may have been a nut of some kind. That’s always possible and frequently convenient.”

  “I thought of that first thing.”

  “What?”

  “First thing after you told me.”

  “That’s fast thinking, boss. It shows that reason can rise above emotion. If someone comes to trial for it, maybe you can get the case, and I can get a raise. A thing like this could make you famous. Another Clarence Darrow or somebody like that.”

  “Sure. Think of all the human interest.”

  “That’s what I mean. Young lawyer defends man charged with murder of old sweetie. Young lawyer’s sweetie, I mean. That will need revision, however. A young lawyer wouldn’t have an old sweetie, would he? A young lawyer would surely have a young sweetie.”

  “This young lawyer doesn’t have any sweetie at all. This young lawyer has a wife.”