The Cocktail Waitress

by James M. Cain

  It was the coroner’s report, and typed onto a line by his thumb I saw a long scientific term: alpha-phthalimidoglutarimide. I shook my head.

  “You put him in the tub—”

  “He’s six foot tall!”

  “You’re strong, you told us so yourself. You lifted your husband off that stairway to the chair, when he had one of his attacks.”

  “That was just ten feet away.”

  “And this was twenty-five, and you did it.”

  “You can’t think—”

  “You cut his wrists with one of his razor blades—sliced up the tips of his fingers a bit too, a nice touch—”

  I let my eyes slide shut, let his voice wash over me.

  “—and then you drove home and went to sleep like an innocent lamb. A three-time murderess, but do you have any of the deaths you caused on your conscience? Not Joan White, no. You’re ready for number four!”

  Then came Sergeant Young’s voice: “Enough.”

  “No, it’s not enough, she’s still sitting there calm as anything—”

  “It’s enough.”

  Silence, for a time. Then, Private Church, in a cooler voice, said: “Take her back to her cell.” And I felt a hand at my elbow, raising me from the chair.

  I opened my eyes. Both men were staring at me intently. The guard who’d led me into the room was by my side, ready to lead me out again. Before he could, I spoke, more calmly than I thought myself capable of: “Yes we were together—Tom and I. Once before I married Earl, and then last night was the second time. In between we never saw each other. Not once. We never spoke. Not once. Ask Liz, where I worked. Ask Bianca. You know them both, Sergeant, they’ll tell you the truth. I walked out on him the first time, to get married, and I meant it. He knew I meant it. As long as Earl was my husband, I’d have kept on meaning it, and he knew that too. The only thing that put me back in his arms was Earl’s death, and the funeral, and you, Private Church, the way you were hounding me—it was too much to bear alone, and I needed to escape it, all of it, for just one night.”

  “Just one,” Private Church said. “And then you killed him.”

  “No! No. Why in the world would I kill him? Especially when I knew you were watching me eagle-eyed and already suspected the worst—but forget that, why would I want to? I wasn’t married to Tom, he had no claim on me. Leaving him was simple. I just walked out again, as I did the last time. Only difference was I didn’t leave a note this time. But he’d have known what it meant.” My voice caught. “That I wasn’t coming back. That this was the end.”

  “And killed himself in despair?”

  “Don’t mock him,” I snapped, some of my old temper coming back. “If he did as you say, then yes, I think we must assume he felt despair.”

  “Over losing you,” Church muttered. “The poor fool, he should have celebrated.”

  Without thinking I raised my hand to slap him, but found it caught by the guard at my side, and thank goodness. I had enough laid at my feet already without adding a charge of assaulting an officer.

  But he backed off a step or two, so I felt I’d accomplished something.

  A knock came at the door then, and Sergeant Young went to answer it. He stood speaking to someone I couldn’t see on the other side, and returned a moment later with a slip of paper in his hand. He spoke a few words into Private Church’s ear and handed over the paper. As Church read it, I could see the muscles of his jaw tighten.

  “Put her back in her goddam cell,” he said.

  I’d never seen him so rattled before. I asked: “What is it? Is it something about my case? Tell me—” All the while, being shepherded none-too-gently toward the door and on into the hall. “Please,” I said, directing a last look at Sergeant Young. “Is it something—”

  “Yes,” he said, drawing an angry stare from his partner for answering me. “It’s something, all right.”

  It took another 36 hours before I found out what.

  In the cabinet beneath the sink in Tom’s half-bath—the very place I had changed my clothes that morning, the very spot—the policemen searching his house had turned up a battered satchel containing, under a pair of paint-stained trousers and a leather tool belt, a used syringe, along with a small tin box. The box was empty except for some powder in the corners, but in the hands of the police chemists those grains of powder were enough to establish what it had once held.

  And the syringe had traces of Thalidomide in it as well. How he’d gained access to our home I never learned. Private Church, of course, asserted that I’d let him in, but it isn’t true. As far as I knew, Tom Barclay had never even set foot on the grounds before the day of Earl’s funeral, much less inside the mansion itself. And yet, he must have—because how else could one of Earl’s syringes have found its way into his possession? And how else could the drug have been introduced into Earl’s intravenous bottle …?

  Liz had warned me that Tom was not a patient boy—but I could never have imagined that his impatience would carry him this far, to craft a scheme of eliminating my husband to get me back. Armed with the information Liz had given him about the true nature of our marriage and the reasons for it, he’d hatched this elaborate plot to make one of Earl’s attacks fatal. Of any other man I wouldn’t have believed it—but Tom had been the one to hatch, and to believe in, a plan to irradiate the nettles in Chesapeake Bay to improve the swimming.

  And then—

  And then, having carried out his plan, having killed a man for me, and having had me again for a night, he’d woken without me there, without even a word of farewell. He must have been consumed with memories of my last parting from him, and of the utter silence that followed. Did he feel angry at me? Toyed with? Despairing? I’ll never know. But in the cold of dawn he’d gotten drunk again—hopelessly, terribly drunk—with what consequence you already know.

  They meant to keep me locked up, but I called Bill Dennison in on it and he found me an outstanding courtroom man, a Mr. R. Harry Hoopes, Esquire, expensive as anything but worth every penny, Bill claimed. And watching him work on my behalf before the judge at my hearing gave me confidence, as clearly the man was competent, although he unfortunately reminded me strongly of my father, and so any good feelings were mitigated. And for all his promises of getting the case against me thrown out, he got to go home every night while night after night I returned to my cell.

  But he made the case I needed him to make. He pointed out the many times I could have let Earl die, and chose to save him instead. He pointed out the fact that I’d given away most of Earl’s money, when I didn’t have to, to Earl’s stepchildren. The argument was made that there was still a good deal left, by the standards of a woman who’d had no electricity, gas, or phone not so long ago, as well as an investment company still operating that would generate more, as I was now a part owner; but Mr. Hoopes, Esquire, countered with the joint accounts, which eliminated any need I might otherwise have had for my husband to die before I could get my hands on his money.

  The other lawyer was no slouch himself, ingratiating himself with the judge and sounding oh so reasonable as he worked to tie the noose around my neck—yes, Your Honor, maybe it’s so that she had access already to her husband’s money, but faced with the choice between the money and an old, sick husband or the same money and a young, handsome one, what does Your Honor think a beautiful young woman like the accused would choose? To which my lawyer volleyed back, “… Then why would she kill him?” The reply being, “She’d conspired in a murder, sir, and knew the police were closing in, she needed to pin the crime on him so it would not get pinned on her.” And back and forth it went.

  The newspapers got hold of it, as I later learned, and ran story after story, with photographs of Earl from their files and of me from the day of my arrest, Sergeant Young’s body only partly blocking me from view. They’d even got one somehow of me in my uniform from the Garden, how I don’t know, and they ran it over and over, with black bars to cover up what they deemed inde
cent. Of course this made it appear more indecent than it actually was.

  Inevitably, the headline writers, knowing of my job and faced with three deaths in which I was alleged to have served the men in my life a lethal concoction, or anyway one that facilitated their deaths, took to calling me “the Cocktail Waitress”—just like that, with capital letters, one for each capital charge against me. It was a sobriquet that caught on, and one that has dogged me ever since. It is why I finally began taping this, so that my name might be cleared, and my children not be saddled with a shame and notoriety that I never deserved and they certainly do not.

  Children—yes. But I’ve leapt ahead of myself.

  Mr. Hoopes made his last impassioned statement to the judge late in the afternoon two weeks to the day from the date of my arrest, and I had the night that followed to stew and to wonder what the outcome would be. Would my case proceed to trial, and from there, if I were to lose, on to sentencing? I could practically feel the restraints closing on my wrists and ankles, the metal cap lowering over my brow, and if I slept a wink all night I didn’t know it. But in the morning, word came down of the judge’s decision: two words, Insufficient Evidence. And I was free.

  34

  I had everything on earth that I needed to make me happy then: besides my freedom, I had, it was true, enough money left, as well as a mansion to live in if I wished, and friends. Except that I did not have the one thing that I wanted, which was my little boy.

  On my exit from the prison, before Mr. Hoopes could depart, I asked if he would come along with me for one more task. He eyed his wristwatch, but still flush with his victory on my behalf and no doubt computing the extra fee he could charge, he agreed. We drove straight to Ethel’s house and pulled up in front of their drive just as they were packing bags into the trunk of their sedan. The judge’s decision had leaked somehow and been picked up by the morning papers, and Ethel had lost no time in preparing her husband and Tad for a trip, perhaps a long one, perhaps one-way. If I’d delayed even by half an hour, if I’d even gone home to change my clothes first or shower, I’d have arrived at an empty house, my son vanished.

  But as it happened, I spotted him seated in the back seat of the sedan and ran over to the door and flung it open. I heard Ethel shout my name, but didn’t care, for Tad was in my arms and I was swinging him up in the air, showering him with all the kisses I’d been forced to store up since I’d held him last. I had tears streaming down my face, and frightened by it, he began to bawl, but I cooed at him and wiped my eyes and told him not to be afraid, that Mommy was back to stay.

  While I was doing all this, Jack Lucas stood looking on, a trunk in each hand and a guilty expression on his face, aware of what it looked like that we’d caught them on their way out. But there was no guilt showing on Ethel’s face, only rage.

  “Put that child down, Joan. You’re not taking him away.”

  “… I am. I have. He’s taken.”

  “What court will let you keep him, Joan? A notorious murderess?”

  “I’m free, Joan. The judge found me innocent.”

  “Like hell. I read the article. He only said there wasn’t enough evidence to prove you guilty. That doesn’t mean you’re not. There’s not a person in this state who doesn’t know you did it.”

  “I’ll thank you, Ethel, not to speak ill of me in front of my boy,” I said, cupping one hand over Tad’s ear. “And if you’re serious about wanting to fight for custody, I’d like to introduce you to my attorney, Mr. R. Harry Hoopes.”

  Hoopes came forward, enough steel in his stare to arm a battalion. “Why don’t we talk, Mrs. Lucas, Mr. Lucas—why don’t we just go inside and talk?”

  The next several days were consumed with meetings. I was seeing lawyers, realtors, and bankers. The lawyers were probating Earl’s will, and had things I had to sign. The realtors hoped, despite all the attention, to sell the mansion, but on that I hadn’t made up my mind, and anyhow, it had to wait on the lawyers, until their work with the will was done. The bankers were Earl’s partners—they owned only a minority of his firm, but knew how his business was done, and I would have been a fool not to bulge up their share, so they would carry on. I did, the thing was put on paper, in a new agreement that I signed, and then lo and behold, I was a 40% partner in a prosperous banking concern—EKW Associates, as they decided to call themselves.

  I had requests, too, from the papers and the newsweeklies, and from radio and television—more than I could count. But I ignored them all, and had Araminta go out front twice to beg all those who had gathered there to leave, out of respect for the young child in the house if not for me. They didn’t leave. Which meant no playing on the lawn for Tad, and no trips outside for me—except for one.

  I learned, to my horror, that Tom’s body had remained all this time in the morgue, unclaimed. Of course, I knew his parents were deceased, and that he had no wife or siblings. But it had never occurred to me that he had no one at all. In time, I guess, he would have been given a public burial of some sort, perhaps in some municipal graveyard, and I couldn’t bear that. For all that he’d done wrong, he still deserved better than a pauper’s grave.

  So, I claimed the body, and called the undertaker, and made arrangements, and rode once more to a funeral with Tom by my side, only this time I was sitting with him in the back of the hearse, not a limousine, and he wouldn’t be returning with me after.

  I’d worn a black dress, conservative and sober, with elbow-length gloves and a hat, both also black, as befit the occasion. I wore, too, the dark glasses from our trip to the airport together, not to prevent the reporters and photographers from recognizing me, as that was hopeless, but to prevent them from seeing me cry, and capturing it with their cameras.

  As it was, photos of me from the service did run in all the major papers—the first photos of “the Cocktail Waitress” since her controversial release from prison. I only regret one thing, which was my decision at the last moment before I left the house to rouge my lips, for it got commented on in every piece of coverage without exception. But I felt I needed a little color, so as not to look like a corpse myself.

  We didn’t hold a separate service, just went direct to the cemetery and met up there with the one clergyman I’d found who had been willing to do the honors. He kindly glossed over Tom’s suicide in his remarks, and also kept them brief, and for his pains took home a fee healthy enough to refurnish his church, or his home if he preferred.

  Liz was there, and Bianca, both of them weeping copiously at the loss. “I can’t believe he did it,” Liz said. “It’s my fault, Joanie, all my fault.” I tried my best to reassure her that it wasn’t, but I was afraid my words rang hollow to her. So I just held her tight and let her cry and patted her shoulder. When she finally let go, I saw a woman standing behind her that I didn’t recognize at first, but knew that I knew. Then I realized it was Pearl Lacey. I hadn’t thought she’d known Tom so well, but then remembered she’d been fond of him. I went over to shake her hand. “Shocking, shocking,” she said. It was the only word she spoke to me the whole time.

  I want to say you know the whole story now—what happened, and how it happened, and why. But there’s one more piece I haven’t told, and that’s what happened when I got home from Tom’s funeral. I realized something, walking through the door, and began to cry, not weeping softly as I had at the cemetery while looking down into the freshly dug grave, but sobbing so hard I could barely catch my breath. Araminta rushed me a glass of water from the kitchen and I almost choked getting it down.

  Then I asked her, gasping, for a calendar. She brought one, a tiny thing she kept pinned to the front of the Frigidaire with a magnet. I turned back a page and counted, though I hardly had to. I’d missed my period this time for sure.

  Since that day, nine months have passed, nearly; my due date is tomorrow. The doctor who will deliver my baby is the same one who came when, in the first heat of panic, I called and begged him to bring over to the mansion whatever appar
atus he needed to perform a test on the spot. He came, he performed the test, and sure enough, this time it wasn’t a delay caused by stress, though god knows I’d had stress enough to dry me up for a lifetime. No, it was a baby, and I’ve carried her ever since.

  Of course I don’t know it’s a girl—not so I can be sure. But I have a feeling about it. I’ve had dreams in which she’s spoken to me, and in all of them it’s been a little girl’s voice. Who knows if that’s reliable, the doctors say no, but some women I’ve talked to take a different view.

  It’s been a difficult pregnancy, with lots of morning sickness and bed-rest needed. Little Tad has been an angel about it, but it hasn’t been easy on him, for sure. Of course we now have the money to hire ten caretakers if need be—but that isn’t the same as having Mommy there to pick you up and whirl you around the room.

  Fortunately, I had some of Hilda’s pills left—a few—and they helped me through the worst of it. I couldn’t ask a doctor for more, of course. Any pills but those, perhaps; but if it got out that the Cocktail Waitress had asked for more Thalidomide—god help me, the newspapers would have a field day with it. As it is, the coverage has picked up, people interested in the story again now that the baby’s almost due. A KILLER’S CHILD, read one headline I passed on the street. I didn’t know if they meant me or Tom. But that night I began recording this. To make sure the truth gets told.

  I can’t wait to see my little girl, to hold her in my arms. Tom’s baby. With a father like him … she’s bound to be a beauty, a perfect little beauty, and I want her to have the life I never did, and that even Tad lost out on, the first four years of his life. He’s a good boy, but every now and again a frightened one, you can see he’s one who’s known pain. But his little sister—I pray she’ll be spared all the cruelties we’ve endured.

  I seemed to be all taped up—that must be all.

  For now.