47

“Allen!” Diana rushed toward him, her arms outstretched. But just before she reached him, she lowered them to her sides. “Hello,” she said almost demurely.

He stepped forward and hugged her like a bear. She became oblivious of the people that crowded past them.

“I have everything,” she said, recovering, “about Wendolyn. Look.” She reached into her handbag.

He put his arm around her. But Diana pulled away. She saw Paul Riley coming toward them. Her look was angry and Allen seemed to shrink before it. “Why?” it demanded.

She shook Riley’s hand, lamenting that the white-glove era had passed. “Nice to see you,” she said.

Allen instructed Diana to pull into the first motel she saw. She did so silently.

She was being foolish, she knew. Rude and foolish. But she could not dispel the sense of violation that Riley’s presence seemed to impose. Why had Allen brought him? Would she ever get to speak to Allen alone?

She got out of the car, walking ahead of the men. She continued to lead the way in the lobby. She signed her own name in the register. “Come on,” she said, still forging ahead, “come on.” The clerk seemed stunned. Perhaps he envied them her eagerness.

It was only when Allen had closed the door behind them that she realized how the scene might have been read. Her face reddened. She and Allen exchanged an amused glance.

“Paul,” Allen said, “I wonder if you’d mind …”

Riley smirked.

“Just for a moment …” Allen’s turn to flush.

“I get you.” Riley’s eyes fixed on Diana. “Half an hour okay?”

“How could you?” Diana asked.

“He can identify Wendolyn. He knows him. I’m guilty, only, of taking you seriously. And, of course, of not warning you in advance that he was coming.”

“Do you know what he thinks we’re doing in here? Half an hour!” And suddenly she laughed. “Oh, he’s awful!”

“I don’t like him either, but at the last minute, it seemed a good idea. And if Wendolyn is alive, it will have been a good idea. Now, show me what you have.”

“Shouldn’t he be here?”

“All right. I’ll go get him.”

“She keeps a list, huh?” Riley said. “Can’t wait to meet this babe.”

Diana tried to take it from him. “It started as a joke,” she explained. “I don’t know why she kept it up.”

“It’s a rather lengthy list,” Allen said, peering over Riley’s shoulder. No leer in his voice. Only disapproval.

“But the last name on it,” she reminded them, “is Ronald Wendolyn’s.”

“This is a gag,” Riley said. “According to this, the chick even slept with George Washington.”

“He was … a student.”

Allen stood, placed his suitcase flat on the bed, and unsnapped the locks. He pulled out an envelope and sorted through its contents. He handed her a Xerox copy of a newspaper article. An article with the same photograph that had been used on the book jacket. It was Wendolyn’s obituary.

She read his list of accomplishments. “Impressive,” she said.

“He was a faggot,” Riley said.

“You see”—Allen took it from her—“he is dead.”

“Explain the diary, then. And his name on that list.”

“I can’t explain it,” Allen said.

“What about … what about the murder? Do you have something about that?”

He gave her a sheet which contained another photo. The picture of a girl, young and smiling. Her senior-class picture, Diana thought. She read the text with its lengthy account of the beating the girl had received. She thought that she would suffocate on her rising fear.

Allen seemed to sense it. He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. “He was never accused. He was never even suspected.”

“But you said …”

“Yes.” He reached deep into the envelope and extracted a pendant. A golden sunburst, hammered by hand, on a thin gold chain.

She reached for it. “What is it?”

“I think it’s the same necklace that the girl is wearing in this photograph. It’s very hard to tell in this copy, but Paul has the original clipping. Paul?”

They turned to look at Riley. He was reading the Wendolyn obituary, gloating over it, it seemed.

“I don’t understand,” Diana said, “how this necklace links Wendolyn to the girl.”

“Oh, simple,” Allen said. “I found it in Wendolyn House. On the mantel over the fireplace. No one, apparently, ever dusted the mantel very carefully.”

She considered this. “If Wendolyn murdered the girl, why wouldn’t he have taken this with him? Done away with the evidence?”

“But there’s more.” He brought forth the confession, darkened his voice, and read: “I, Ronald Wendolyn, did murder Christine Rivers.”

“Sheesh,” Riley said.

Diana swallowed. “We’ll have to go to the police. We’ll have to.”

“Diana. Can you imagine us turning up with all these bits and pieces? Can you imagine what they’d say? It happened in New Hampshire. It might as well have been another country. And not only is the wench dead, but the alleged murderer as well.”

“I’m afraid for Lida,” Diana reminded him. “I’m really afraid.”

“We’ll find her.” He took the diary and read the entry again. “And it would seem that we’ll find her at The Play of Herod.”

They sat in silence. Diana broke it finally. “You’re thinking of something, Allen. What is it?”

“I was thinking that Lida mightn’t be in any danger. After all, he is on her list. Surely Wendolyn wouldn’t kill a woman he was taking to his bed.”

“You don’t think he was sleeping with that girl?”

“Well, from what Paul has said about him …”

Riley looked up.

Allen continued. “I hate to get really clinical about this, but the article did say that no traces of semen were found.”

“Hey,” Riley interjected, “have you two ever heard of rubbers?”