“Blake’s taking your calls.”
“Stop arguing with me. I’m—tired. If you don’t mind, I wish you’d go away.”
“You’re always wishing I’d go away. It’s painful to me. Easter, Easter, go away, don’t come again some other…”
“Please. I really am tired.”
“I know. I won’t keep you. I came to see whether you got home all right.”
“Well, I did. I
did,
You can
see
that.”
“I can see a lot of things,” he said slowly. “You’re nervous as hell. What’s up?”
“Nothing. You—you didn’t really come here to see if I arrived safely. You’re spying on me.”
“Why should I?”
“Because you think that I’m mixed up in all these terrible things.”
“They’re not so terrible—a suicide, a natural death—no murder.” He repeated, “No murder,” in an insinuating tone as if he expected her to contradict him. She said nothing.
He walked over to her car, turned off the headlights and removed the key ring from the ignition. He tossed it to her. It fell in the grass at her feet and she watched it dully, as if her mind were too dazed to understand the concept of catching something that was thrown at her.
“Your keys,” Easter said.
“Keys? Oh. Yes, of course.”
They knelt, simultaneously, to pick up the key ring and their arms touched. She drew back as if he’d aimed a blow at her.
He picked up the key ring first. “I’m poison to you, eh?”
“No. Not poison.” A jackknife, a gun, foam.
“You won’t be making any calls tonight. I’ll put your car away for you and bring your luggage into the house.”
“No! I won’t let…”
“What’s the matter? Is there something in the house you don’t want me to see?”
“No.”
“Ballard, perhaps?”
“There’s nothing in the house,” she said contemptuously. “Come in and see. Snoop all you want to.”
“Since you put it so charmingly, I will.”
He got her week-end bag out of the car while she unlocked the front door.
She turned on all the lights in the sitting room: “There. See anything?”
“No.”
“No guns or b—bodies?”
He looked at her quizzically. “I hardly expected to find any guns or bodies. Just Ballard.”
“Why do you want to see Lewis?”
“For one thing, his wife reported him missing this morning.”
“Missing?
Lewis?”
“But that’s just one thing. There are other things… Where is he?”
“I don’t know. And if Lewis wants to go away, it’s not my business, and it’s certainly not yours, Mr. Easter.”
“You might be surprised.”
“You have nothing against Lewis except that I love him.”
“The way I feel, that’s plenty to have against a man. Even if it were all.”
His intensity disturbed her. She didn’t know what to say or do. She stood near the door, her hat and gloves still on, her handbag under her arm. She said finally, “Sit down and I’ll find something to drink.”
“I’ll stand, thanks. I feel more like a policeman when I’m standing and less like a guy calling on the woman he loves. I’m both. But right now I’m standing. Where’s Ballard?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since the night before last at dinner-time. I told him I was going to drive up to Oregon.”
“Did you tell him why?”
“Yes.
“And he didn’t want you to go?”
“He didn’t care.”
“You’re lying.”
“He didn’t care much.”
“Plenty.”
“Stop beating around the bush like this,” she said passionately. “If he cared at all, it was because the trip meant that I wouldn’t see him for a couple of days. What other reason would he have for caring whether I went to Ashley or not?”
“I can think of several.”
“You. You can think of anything against Lewis. He told me that’s what you were—a troublemaker.”
“That’s what I am.” He lit a cigarette. There was no draft in the room. The smoke moved directly, purposefully, to the ceiling. “By the way, I have news for you about Voss and Eddie.”
She felt the blood draining out of her face. She turned and began taking off her gloves and her hat, fussing with her purse—any kind of quick movement to distract his eye from her pallor.
“They’ve disappeared. Sunk without a trace. I’m a little disappointed about losing them. I was hoping to ask Eddie a few questions about where he got the money to buy his new car.”
You can still ask him. But he won’t answer.
The telephone began to ring. She looked towards it, dazedly, as if she’d never heard a phone ring and was surprised that the curious black object could make such a noise.
“Answer it,” Easter said. “Or I will, if you like.”
“No. No, I will.” She crossed the room and picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Dr. Keating, it’s me, Gwen Ballard. I’ve been trying to get you all day. Miss Schiller kept telling me to phone Dr. Blake. But I wouldn’t. I said, no, Dr. Keating’s my doctor, I
won’t
see anyone else.”
Charlotte glanced over her shoulder at Easter. He hadn’t moved, but his body was tense as if every nerve cell was straining to help him hear what was being said at the other end of the line. She put her hand over the receiver and said, “This is a private call from one of my patients. You wouldn’t be interested.”
He didn’t speak, just looked at her, unblinking.
She took her hand away from the receiver. “Is there anything the matter?”
“I’ve had another attack.” Gwen’s breathing was labored, her voice faint and tremulous. “I’m alone. I’m afraid.”
“There’s nothing to worry about Take it easy and…”
“I must see you. Please come, Dr. Keating—Charlotte—I must talk to someone, a friend.”
A friend. Gwen, alone and in terror, calling to her, of all the people in the city, as a friend. Charlotte felt a nausea rising from her stomach, souring her throat “Has anything happened?”
“He tried to kill me. Yes! He tried to kill me! He said he hated me, he’d always hated me!”
The pitch and volume of Gwen’s voice had risen. Charlotte saw that Easter had heard, not the words perhaps, but the notes of hysteria. She had to quiet Gwen before Easter got suspicious. She said, “I’ll be right over. Ten minutes.”
“Oh, thank you, Dr. Keating, thank you.”
Charlotte replaced the phone. “I have to make a call.”
“So I heard.”
“If you’ll excuse me now…” She looked pointedly towards the door.
Easter raised one eyebrow. “You want me to leave?”
“It’s customary.”
“Suppose I like it here. It’s cozy and warm, and I expect Ballard to call.”
His reaction was something she hadn’t foreseen. She’d thought he would leave when she did, giving her a chance, later, to plan what to do about Voss and O’Gorman. There was no way of forcing him to leave except—and the irony stung—to call the police.
Silently, she picked up her hat and purse and went out the door. She didn’t look back, and Easter didn’t speak.
As she backed her car out of the driveway she saw that she had made a fatal error.
In her hurry to close the garage door when she heard Easter’s car, she had forgotten to turn out the light. Its beams shone gaily out of the little window at the side of the garage, as if inviting anyone to come in and see for himself.
Nine o’clock. An offshore wind was blowing and the palm trees cringed and leaned away from it, waving their frantic arms.
The Ballard house couldn’t be seen from the street. It appeared suddenly, at a curve in the cypress-lined walk, a handsome house of oiled redwood set in a formal garden. Charlotte had always disliked this garden. The flower beds were too meticulously planned; they seemed to have no connection with nature any more. They were Gwen’s and not the earth’s. The lawn, too, was so immaculate that it was impossible to imagine real people walking on it.
And real people never did, Charlotte thought. The lawn wasn’t to be walked on, but to be admired from the dining alcove or from the picture window in the living room. Even the collies, whom Gwen loved best, were not allowed on the grass. They had their own yard behind the house, fenced runways and miniature houses and a brooder for the bitches with new pups.
A light was kept on for them all night. Charlotte could see several of the dogs watching her cautiously through the wire fencing, their tails half raised, as if they weren’t sure yet that she was a friend.
She spoke to them softly and one of the tails began to wag, slowly, with dignity, like a feathered fan waved by a condescending duchess.
The other dogs, Gwen’s three favorites, were upstairs with her in her bedroom. They lay beside her bed, a protective phalanx. Gwen had told them to lie down and they had obeyed; but their eyes were restless, they followed Charlotte’s every move, they searched Gwen’s face for reassurance, and now and then the big sable-colored male let out a whimper like a child.
“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, some day, 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 shop girl 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?”