For a week I had to stay in the store all day while I trained Doris to take over in the afternoons. I didn’t see Curt at all, but Gaby came in a couple of times looking pale and Camille-like — particularly alongside ruddy, jovial Carrie Robinson. She’d shake her head when I asked if there was anything new. There was something new, but not in the quest for Gil Sisk. One night a rock smashed the window of Stubb’s tavern; attached to it was a printed note saying: THIS IS FOR SANDY BENNETT. Nobody could figure it out except that somebody blamed Stubb because she’d drunk beer there the night she burned. Stubb closed up for a week and went to Excelsior Springs, which contributed to the town’s somber aspect. Two mornings later, Bill Struble found a dead dog with its throat cut hanging from the railroad-crossing signal. It was a brindle watchdog — of mongrel breed but mostly boxer — belonging to Fern Blake, the widow of Jerry Blake, who’d been killed when the butane tank blew up in the hardware store. Fern demanded protection, and Sheriff Wade named a special deputy to patrol the area at night. He was Wayne Calvin, a mechanic at Slavitt’s auto salvage, Seventh Day Adventist, and about the only unmarried man in Sherman who didn’t drink. Tension still mounted; Tillie Sims, 75, who lived alone, saw an eerie face in her window one midnight. Her sister Winifred, 72, who hadn’t spoken to Tillie in twenty years, saw a face in her window the following night. The two women moved in together the following day, so it couldn’t be said that events were all bad.
The county paper came out that Friday with a three-column headline: PRANKSTER PROWLS SHERMAN.
The story was treated with the Sunday-school type of indignation typical of small-town newspapers. It included a warning from Sheriff Wade that the prankster was guilty of malicious mischief and subject to prosecution.
Just below that story, another tiny headline caught my eye:
CURT FRIEDLAND ARRESTED
RELEASED FOR LACK OF EVIDENCE
Curtis Friedland, former resident of Sherman, was arrested by Sheriff Glen Wade on suspicion of possessing illegal firearms. He was released for lack of evidence.
I pondered the item a minute before I realized it referred to the phony arrest at Curt’s place while I watched. Lord! that was how long … over two weeks ago. Two county papers had come out since then.
“Guilt by association,” said Curt’s voice.
I looked up and saw him standing there. He wore his old denims, but they were deeply wrinkled and stained with red mud, as though he’d been tramping the Brush Creek hills all night. Just seeing him lifted my spirits, but I was depressed by the gray weariness of his face.
“You mean the paper?” I asked.
Curt nodded. “No county sheriff is going to be elected year after year without knowing how to use his local newspaper. He released the story of my arrest knowing the editor usually tries to group all Sherman news together. Most people will just assume that both items were part of the same story. I’m already getting dirty looks.”
I folded the paper and shoved it aside. “I’ve been starving for news, Curt. Haven’t you found out anything?”
He shook his bead. “The detective’s looking. I’m looking. Nothing new.”
At the same time he was making writing motions with his hand. I slid a pencil and pad over to him and watched him write: Tomorrow, five p.m. Your mailbox.
He went out and climbed in his car. I hoped he’d go home and get some sleep.
That night at seven I got a call from Harley Grove, secretary of the town council. He asked me to tell Lou they were having a special meeting of the council. Lou was supposed to come. I asked what it was about; I’d gone to school with Harley and was shocked when he said bluntly: “Council business, Veda. Just tell Lou to be sure and come.”
Lou came in at eight and I relayed the message. Then I watched TV without seeing it until Lou came home at ten. He was chuckling as he pulled off his tie. While I mixed him a drink, he said: “They think Curt Friedland’s bringing this trouble. They want him pressured out of town.”
I felt like I’d been suddenly thrust among foreigners. That’s why Harley hadn’t told me what the meeting was about. Where had I slipped up? How had word gotten out that Curt and I were … what did they think we were doing anyway?
“How could they pressure him?” I asked.
“Someone would talk to him, buy him out. They … had me in mind.” He laughed and tipped back his glass. The ice clicked against his teeth. He lowered his glass and belched. “It’s the old story of bell-the-cat. Everyone wants the other guy to do it. I told them they’d better forget the idea before it lashes back. Friedland’s no hairy-necked Brushcreeker.”
I felt grateful to Lou, and guilty because I was working behind his back. But I explained to myself that Lou and I were going through the period of estrangement we usually have when he starts a new project. He was traveling, buying new equipment, supervising the work. I only saw him late in the evenings, and even then he’d usually be working out in the shop, where he’d installed a desk and an adding machine for a makeshift study.
I was watching the mailbox at four-forty p.m. the next day. My heart jumped when I saw Curt’s old car stop — but the car drove off immediately. I trudged out and found a brown manila envelope crammed into the box. It contained a book, The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran, and an aerial photo of the Brush Creek wilderness. The book had certain words circled, and the photo was speckled with numbers written in grease pencil. I took it to the house and tried to fathom the connection between the book and the photo. I couldn’t. I decided the key was missing. Damn Curt and his penchant for intrigue….
The phone rang at three a.m. I got up, my thoughts suspended. A three a.m. call meant trouble. “Hello,” I said.
“Velda,” said a husky, muffled voice. “Listen carefully and you’ll know who I am. You got a sandbur in your butt, remember? You didn’t notice until you started to pull on your panties, then you had to have him pull it out. You looked funny standing in the gully holding your dress up with your panties down — they were red, I remember the color — while he — ”
I slammed down the receiver. My heart was beating so fast I thought it would choke me. Perspiration trickled down my body and between my breasts. My hands were sweaty; I wiped them on my nightgown and felt an urge to scrub my entire body with soap. The words had stained me with filth….
It had been the watcher. No other living person could have known about that embarrassing incident with the sandbur. I walked into the bedroom and looked down at Lou’s sleeping figure. I wanted to wake him up, but I’d have to tell him the whole story of Mart and I, about Curt’s project — and what could Lou do?
I drank a glass of straight Scotch and felt better. I regretted having slammed down the phone; if I’d listened longer, he might have let slip some clue to his identity. Even now … I lifted the receiver and heard only the crackle and hum of the wires. I called Central and asked: “Did you just put through a call to me?”
“Uh … yes.” The operator yawned audibly into the phone. She slept on a couch beside the switchboard. “It came from Connersville I think. Yes. Connersville.”
“Thank you. Get me Curt Friedland’s residence.”
While she was ringing I remembered Curt’s warning of secrecy. But it was too late because Gaby was answering, her voice breathless and urgent.
“Is Curt there?”
Gaby sighed. “No. I thought this would be him.”
I felt a brief pity for Gaby; in a sense, she was nearer the danger than I was. “I just got a nasty call from … our friend. From Connersville.”
“I’ll tell Curt when he comes in.”
That was all. Next morning in the store I tried by subtle questioning to learn if any Shermanites had been in Connersville the night before. As nearly as I could learn, none had. Gaby came in and we went for another Coke. She said Curt had left for Connersville as soon as he got home. He planned to look for someone from Sherman, especially Gil Sisk. Then she asked: “Did you figure out the code?”
“Not completely. I know the territory in the photo — ”
“He thought you would. The page numbers in the book correspond to the numbers on the photo. When he wants to meet you, he’ll give you a quote from the book — over the phone or in a note. The page on which the quote appears will be the number of your meeting place. Find the circled word in the phrase, count from the left-hand margin, and you’ll have the time of the meeting.”
My head was spinning. “Ingenious.”
She gave a wry laugh. “He plays it like a chess game. You should see my instructions on what to do in this or that emergency while he’s gone. He covers everything but an invasion from Mars.” She paused. “The quote for today is: ‘Speak to us of love.’”
I frowned. “Don’t you know where the place is?”
She shook her head. “No. Nor the time. You see how it works? A person could overhear and still know nothing. Like me.” She gave a crooked smile. “He says there’s no need to spread the burden of secrecy.”
I drove home after work and looked it up. Page eleven. The word “speak” was circled, fourth from the margin. Four o’clock at site eleven. I dressed excitedly in green slacks and sweater; it would be our first meeting in nearly a week.
The site was a cove so choked with cattails that no boat could enter. I sat down on the bank and smoked a cigaret; I was completely hidden from the lake. Cattails arched overhead, a hill sloped up to a deserted farmhouse, and sheep grazed on the hillside. After ten minutes Curt came strolling down the hill; his eyes were puffy and I decided he’d been taking a nap in the farmhouse while he waited for me. He didn’t look any more tired than before; maybe he’d reached a level of fatigue where it no longer showed. He sat down beside me and asked me about the call. I told him in general terms, without revealing exactly what Mart and I had been doing there. I tried to describe the voice, but could only say that it was a man’s voice, muffled and indistinct. Curt said he’d seen nobody in Connersville, but that a couple of switchboard operators had promised to keep track of calls to Sherman. They might or they might not; at any rate he planned to spend the night there just in case.
Then he fell silent. I still wasn’t used to his total lack of small talk. I got nervous. I looked at the hill, the grazing sheep, the blank windows of the farmhouse like staring eye sockets, and I felt a strange emptiness. I had been eager to meet him … now what? I wanted something more, but I knew no way to break through to him….
Still, it was our daily afternoon meetings which kept me from leaving town. Because the calls continued during the following week. There was no voice; just a ringing late at night, then a hoarse breathing which gave me chills. I’d listen and visualize Curt out patrolling the neighborhood lines. (His listening post at Connersville produced nothing; only the first call had come from there.) Lou would sometimes be in bed asleep and sometimes out in his study working. If he’d asked me about the calls I’d have told him, but he didn’t ask. (He wasn’t aware of me really. The road job had bogged down; they’d run into rock outcropping and were blasting it out. With each blast Lou’s profit margin dwindled.)
Each morning Curt would call with a quotation or else Gaby would bring it into the store. I’d find the spot on the map and Curt and I would meet. Our seventh meeting wasn’t much different from any of the others. It took place in a little hickory grove where I’d climbed trees as a girl.
“Another call last night?” asked Curt.
I nodded. “Like the others. He breathed at me. What’s new from the detective?”
“On the night of Bernice’s death he went to Kansas City, but there’s no record of his having stayed in a hotel.”
“Maybe he stayed with a woman.”
“As a bachelor, why would he hide it?”
I nodded. “True. Gil would be more likely to brag about it.”
On the tenth day I said: “Maybe Gil’s a victim. He could be lying dead someplace.”
Curt nodded. “Sure. The body could be hidden but not the car. The detective has the make and number. Five-thousand dollar convertibles don’t sit abandoned for ten days without being noticed.” He looked at me sharply. “You have another suspect?”
“I suspect everybody,” I said. “I watch the people come in the store and they all act guilty. Sylvester Bloch mumbles to himself all the time. Fred Goff has a twitch in his face. When he looks at me it’s like grasshoppers jumping under his skin.”
“We’ve got more than our share of kooks,” said Curt. He was whittling a point on a hickory stick. “Maybe it’s inbreeding. In my class at school there were fourteen kids, all descended from three couples.” He squinted up at the blue sky between the new leaves. “While I went to school with them they were individuals. People. Since I’ve been away they’ve become types, like a Washington Irving story of the New England backwoods. Eli Black was Eli Black, boring and stupid at times, but someone to have a certain kind of fun with. Now he fits perfectly the category of a rural loudmouthed braggart and coward. Marie Herzog was once a moderately attractive, friendly girl, a good dancer, and a girl who’d go all the way in a parked car just to be a good sport. Now she’s a frowsy, blowsy, gabbling busybody. Janet was a sharp kid, careful about whom she dated, always on top of the lesson, neat and clean and ready to call attention to the fact that you weren’t, but in a good-natured, for-your-own-good manner. She never put out until you’d agreed to go steady. And even then not until you’d hauled her fifty miles to a movie. Now she’s a greedy wolfish woman, collecting tinsel in that overbuilt house of hers, pushing her husband until the poor bastard’s got a crick in his neck from looking over his shoulder to see if she’s behind him. She’s a Las Vegas type, the kind you see at horse races and in charge of fashion magazines. Rolly Cartwright was a pudgy little guy whose hands were always sweaty, who was always putting the seam of his pants out of the crack of his ass, who giggled in the locker room and seemed to spend a lot of time in the john. Now I can see plain as hell he’s a fag. Gloria’s a dyke; she stands over there in the post office and she doesn’t watch the men go by, she watches the girls. I don’t know where or how she gets her kicks now. In high school she was always the girlfriend of the good-looking chick, the one you always had to bring a date for and the guy you brought always said never again. Just when you were going strong with your date in the movies … she’d nudge your date and whisper in her ear. In a restaurant she’d never go to the john unless your date accompanied her, and then in the john she’d try her damndest to screw up your scene, telling your date you’d gotten fresh or something. Well, she’s queer. Look at the guy she married, he’s just about as effeminate as you can get without being an overt fag. Somebody should do her a big favor, go over and say, Look baby, your scene is women. Stop fighting it and start making it and you’ll be a lot happier.”
“Why don’t you tell her?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, actually she wouldn’t be happier. Guilt would weight her down. She couldn’t be a straight dyke; she’d have to tie it up with a little ribbon of social acceptance…. Maybe she and some young chicks could go off to Africa as missionaries….”
“Curt, while you’re analyzing — ”
He said it before I finished. “What type are you?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve ceased to be a type and become an individual. Everybody does that eventually.”
“But you had me typed?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. What?”
“Frustrated romantic, good brain but too easily screwed up by emotions — ”
“You can stop now.” He grinned. “Don’t want to hear?”
“You … go too deeply, Curt. You miss a lot that happens on the surface.”
“Eating, sleeping, talking, what else happens on the surface?”
“Well … emotional relationships. Love …”
“Symbolic,” he said. “Sublimated narcissism.” He got up suddenly, giving me a pat on the hip. “We’d better go.”
This was as near as we’d gotten to a personal relationship; we could talk about sex but we couldn’t do anything about it. We were as intimate as old lovers, but we’d never been lovers. I suppose that’s why it hurt so much when the community turned against me. I was going to work; the morning was clear and sparkling as a diamond, birds twittered, and the air was full of green, growing smells. Suddenly I stopped. Chalked on the sidewalk in front of the bank were the words:
VELDA BAYRD LOVES CURT FRIEDLAND.
My face burned as I scrubbed it out with my foot. Just then I looked through the window of the bank and saw Bob Sieberling, the vice president, polishing his glasses and watching me. There was no friendliness in his look; I knew he’d seen the words and waited for me to come along and rub them out.
That afternoon I told Curt about it. “I felt I didn’t know any of those people … Bob Sieberling … the person who wrote the words … I had a feeling they’ve hated me for years and all their smiles and kind words were faked.”
“Did you notice the handwriting?”
“I …” I blushed. “No, I was so embarrassed, I just wanted it erased — ”
“Embarrassed of course because it implied you were the aggressor, the brazen hussy pining for unrequited love. If it had said Curt loves Velda you’d have been flattered — ”
I swung at him but he ducked. “Be serious. You think it was the killer?”
“Didn’t have to be. Once it starts, others will pick it up. As you say, they’ve been storing it up. Poor little hill girl marries man for money — ”
“I didn’t.”
“I’m speaking with the voice of Sherman. Blood will tell, they’ll say, and point out that your sister Anne was a naughty girl. Some of them have waited twelve years to say I told you so. I’d say it’s only the beginning, Velda.”
He was right, because the next day Fern Blake came in and said she’d decided to do her trading in Franklin. She’d never been a very levelheaded woman, and I was cool and polite to her. I simply handed her the bill which had been accruing for ten years. We’d never presented it because her husband had been Lou’s partner. I think Fern had some chronic illness; she was a pale, bony-faced woman who wore gloves in the hottest summer. She always dabbed pink rouge high on each cheekbone and smelled as though she’d dumped a whole bag of cheap talcum powder over her body. Her hands shook as she ripped apart the ticket. Her voice trembled as she said:
“Velda, for ten years now I’ve kept my husband’s secret. But I’ve known, and your nicey-nice ways haven’t fooled me. If you bother me with this — ”
I could only stare at her. “What … what are you talking about?”
“I know. Don’t think I don’t. Just remember that.”
She walked out then, and I remembered…. Lou had wanted to borrow money to go into the turkey business; he’d needed Jerry’s signature on his note because there’d be a mortgage on the store. Jerry had come out one night while Lou was attending some meeting in Franklin. (I could never keep track of Lou’s organizations.) Sharon was a baby then and in bed, and Jerry pulled a pint bottle out of his inside jacket pocket and said he’d wait for Lou. Jerry was a big, thick-necked redfaced man. He was sweating, and I should have known something was wrong. But the Blakes were family friends; Jerry and Lou owned a boat together and we all four spent weekends on the lake, went bowling together and all that. Jerry and I were on a kidding, platonic basis … I thought. Jerry took a couple of drinks then brought up the note. He didn’t think he could sign it. I was surprised, because I’d thought it was all settled. Then I shrugged; it was between him and Lou. Jerry drank twice more from the bottle and said it all depended on me. He had a little cabin on the lake which his wife knew nothing about. If I’d tell him when I could get away he’d give me a key. I didn’t intend to torture Jerry; I just couldn’t understand. Jerry squirmed and finally blurted out that we could meet there and nobody would ever know. I kept my temper; I stood up and said I was going into the bedroom. If he left immediately I’d keep quiet. If he didn’t I’d call either Lou or the sheriff. I left the room and Jerry left the house. How his wife had found out, and how she’d managed to find any implication of misbehavior on my part I didn’t know. Jerry had been all bluff anyway; he’d signed the note and I’d seen no sign of friction between him and Lou. Of course, I’d avoided Jerry after that and two years later he died.
I was getting sick of the citizens of Sherman. They were more narrow and bigoted than I’d thought. When I told Curt about it that afternoon he asked: “Did Lou know about it?”
“I never told him.”
“Could Blake have told him, or Blake’s wife?”
“Why would they, Curt?”
He was silent a moment; we were sitting on a ridge where a tilted rock stratum stuck up like the exposed spine of an ancient dinosaur. I’d picked the year’s first bouquet and the flowers were slowly drooping in my hand. Finally Curt gave me a sidelong look: “Not many weeks ago you upheld Jerry Blake as a moral saint. What do you think now?”
“The same thing, I guess. Who knows what I might have done unconsciously to give poor Jerry the idea I was available. He might have thought I was flirting when I was just trying to be friendly.”
A faint smile flickered around his mouth. “In other words, it isn’t immoral for a man to desire you. Whereas if he desires another woman, as in Gil Sisk’s case — ”
“Oh Curt! Do you examine your own motives as closely as you do mine?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes. As a matter of fact, I do.”
I wanted to ask him then what his motives were toward me. I hadn’t been much use to his investigation lately, yet I had a feeling there was something he wanted me to do, something he couldn’t ask because he wasn’t quite sure of me …
Gladys came into the store the next morning and started talking about the days when she was my teacher and had great hopes for me, and how I must realize she was interested only in my own welfare, and finally: “You must know, Velda, you’re being talked about.”
I felt icy cold. “Am I? Concerning what?”
“You surely know, Velda. Apparently I was mistaken about Curt Friedland. He’s just like his brothers.”
“You happen to be mistaken about me at this very moment, Gladys.”
“Indeed. Why is it that I see you driving west out of town every afternoon?”
Gladys wore a weird smile which revealed the orange-colored gums of her false teeth. Her prominent hooked nose and narrow chin stood out in sharp relief, almost like a parody. “Maybe it’s because you’re a spying old witch, Gladys.”
I regretted the pointless insult at once, but it was too late; Gladys strode out with her head high and I knew that whoever didn’t already know my shameful story would hear it before sundown.
I looked out the window; a bleak spring drizzle fell on the street. There’d be no meeting with Curt today. The branches of the elm trees drooped under the weight of moisture and I knew exactly how they felt. I went back into the office with the idea of crying, but even that seemed pointless. I called up Doris and told her I was sick, then I went home and drank beer alone all afternoon.
Next day I noticed a coldness in the people who came in the store. None of the usual gossipy conferences around the cash register; now they talked out on the sidewalk, looking inside occasionally at where I was standing. There was more than one reason for it. A few had stopped trading in the store and left outstanding bills of nearly two hundred dollars.
My father called me up that night. “Stay away from him, Velda. That family’s brought us nothing but grief.”
“Suppose Frankie didn’t do it?”
“I don’t give a damn if he did it or not. She ruined her life chasing that man. He’s guilty, one way or another. Let him rot in jail, and keep away from his brother.”
He hung up. My father had never been much interested in legal subtleties, but all the same, I was beginning to see what a chunk Curt had bitten off.
The next day my brother stomped in. Gordon and I had always been on good terms; the fact that Anne had been between us in age had saved us from any sibling rivalry. He’d competed with Anne instead of me. But today his face was hard.
“Dad called me last night. I told him I’d go tell Curt Friedland to leave you alone.”
I blazed up. “You big helpful oaf. Does it occur to you that I’m thirty-five — ?”
“Then go tell him yourself.”
“What if I don’t want to be left alone?”
“Then you oughta be whipped. Too damn bad your husband is a flatlander or he’d do it himself.”
He stomped out the door and got into his car. I stood there a minute, then I realized this was an encounter I couldn’t let take place. Curt and my brother fighting … how could anything good come of it?
I locked up the store — business had fallen off anyway — and drove to Curt’s as fast as I could. When I got there Curt was sitting on the steps and Gordon was standing. Their poses didn’t look belligerent; they weren’t even talking about me. They were talking about Anne and Frankie. Gordon was saying:
“… doesn’t matter who did what. If he hadn’t come back she wouldn’t have chased him.”
“Gordon,” I said. “You can’t hold Curt responsible for what his brother did.”
Gordon turned to me, but Curt spoke.
“That’s the way it works, Velda You know that. I am responsible for what Frankie did. But he didn’t do anything.” He turned to Gordon. “See if you can answer yes to just one of these questions. Did you ever see Frankie hit a woman? No. Was there any reason why he’d kill Anne? Were they fighting? Was she threatening to leave him? No. In fact, it looked like they were going off together. Somebody didn’t like that idea. Somebody else — ”
“Curt, Frankie’s lawyer said all this. It didn’t save him then, how can it save him now?”
“With proof — ”
“Proof! You’ll just stir up a stink, I agree with Dad. Let it lay.”
“Sure, Gordon. Pretend Frankie’s dead. You ever see a prison? Nothing grows around it, no trees, no grass. It’s like a poison seeps through the walls and kills all life. Put a man away and forget him. The authorities will take care of him because they’re paid to. People outside can assume he’s dead; he won’t pop up and remind you he’s alive. He isn’t really. He’s got nothing to do in there but watch himself die.”
Gordon turned and started away. Curt called after him. “You think he’s guilty?”
Gordon shrugged without turning around. “It’s out of our hands.”
He got in his car and drove away without looking at me. Obviously he’d forgotten what he came for. I looked at Curt. “He planned to warn you away from me. How’d you get him off that?”
“A soft answer turneth away wrath.” Curt smiled. “I saw he was mad, but I remembered seeing him in a fight once. You were there. The other guy got him down somehow; you jumped on the guy’s back and started pulling his hair and biting and scratching. You were a little savage, all skinny elbows and legs. I didn’t want to fight you this morning.” He stood up and slid his arm across my shoulders. “Come in. Gaby’s got coffee made.”
It must have been his fraternal gesture — perhaps his nonchalance — but I suddenly choked up with bitterness. “Curt, listen, if I’m a fool for taking this thing seriously, will you kindly tell me? If it’s all a game just … tell me so I can laugh and have a ball too …”
He pulled away and gave me a studied look. “You’re really bugged, aren’t you?”
“I shouldn’t be, I suppose. I’m in trouble with my folks, I’ve made enemies I didn’t want and friends I don’t need — ”
“You can step out.”
“Can I?”
“Sure. Tell them I deceived you. They’ll take you back and gladly, because you’ve done something that makes you interesting. You’ll be invited places and women will take you aside to tell you about their affairs so that you’ll tell about yours. You’ll find life full and complete and with a richness you never dreamed — ”
“Oh, shut up.” I wasn’t mad anymore.
“Seriously.”
“Sure. You make the whole community sound like a gabbling chicken coop.”
He shrugged. “I see what I see. You want out or not?”
“When I want out I’ll get out. I don’t need your release.”
He smiled, and somehow it all faded away. It always did; you never really came to grips with Curt unless he wanted it that way; it was as though he had spent all his life avoiding traps.
That night, for the first time in weeks, Lou arranged one of his quiet family evenings. He washed the dishes, helped Sharon with her homework, and watched TV. After Sharon had gone to bed, Lou turned off the TV and regarded me with an expression of sadness and pity.
“You know they’re talking about you, Velda?”
It was his commiseration which infuriated me; that and the fact that I’d been told so many times. “How nice,” I said. “How utterly suburban.”
“You know what they’re saying?”
“The worst, I suppose. I’m carrying on shamelessly while you, the faithful husband, slaves away in blind devotion. I’m pregnant with Curt’s child, expected to slip off to St. Joe for an abortion at any moment….”
He smiled faintly, and I could see the picture amused him.
“You know,” he said, approaching the subject from left field the way he often does, “your family has a strange self-destructive urge. Once a structure shows a few chinks, you yell whoopee, damn the torpedoes, school’s out, let’s burn the building. Just because one little piece is tarnished, you tear down the whole goddam edifice.”
He was talking about our marriage. I didn’t want to go into that.
“What are they saying, that I have a weakness for the Friedland family?”
“For violence … destructive men. Maybe you see it in the men, or maybe you bring it out in them, I don’t really know.”
“Like I bring violence out in you. What a violent man you are, Lou.”
A faint smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You think so?”
At that moment I didn’t know. I said: “You think there’s anything in what they’re saying about Curt and me?”
“No.”
Somehow that only made me angrier. “I see. You are the calm voice of understanding. You only brought it up to remind me of our place in the community, and how we shouldn’t do anything to jeopardize our position. I’m expected only to be careful, and if we should decide to sleep together, we should tell you, and you’ll make sure that we’re discreet about this thing and nobody knows — ”
“You can stop now, Velda. Your nose is getting red.”
I jumped up and went into the bedroom. While I lay there I could hear him in the kitchen, getting a bottle from the cupboard. I drifted into a half-sleep; I didn’t hear him come into the bedroom. Suddenly I felt the blanket jerked off and my nightdress yanked up to my waist. I could hear the rush of breath through his nostrils as his strong hands rolled me and sprawled me on my back. There was no point in pretending to be asleep; I helped him in order to end it more quickly….
“Every other night, Velda,” he said when he rose. “Maybe that will keep you home. That’s what all the boys tell me.”
Gaby’s call awoke me next morning. The eaves still dripped from an early-morning shower. Lou had already left for work and Sharon had gone to the corner to catch the schoolbus. Gaby said:
“Can you come over? It’s urgent.”
“Has anything happened to Curt?”
“No. One of his traps has sprung. He wants us there. You’ll have to come and get me.”
She was waiting in front of the house with two suitcases. “He found Gil.”
“Found him?” A picture of Gil lying dead in a ditch leaped into my mind, but Gaby’s next words corrected it. “He hasn’t taken him yet, but he knows where he is. He found out Gil has a cabin on Lake Pillybay. The detective’s been watching it. Late last night Gil came back to it. He’s still there.”
I helped her load the suitcases into my car and asked what they were.
“Recording apparatus,” she said. “Just finding the killer won’t help Frankie. There has to be a confession, and an impartial witness.”
“Who — ?”
“You.”
As I drove I learned that most of her information had been received in a phone call which instructed her to implement plan 3a. That meant a suspect was cornered and the recording equipment was needed. She showed a sheaf of typewritten pages on which he’d listed plans for various emergencies. One said: Arrest by sheriff. It called for Lou to bail him out, and I wondered if Lou really would. Another was labeled: My death. Clear out without delay. Hand evidence to FBI and forget it. That one horrified me; I knew Curt thought that way, but seeing it coldly written on paper made it seem almost as though it had already happened.
Gaby directed me to the opposite side of Lake Pillybay, a rolling wooded area which Shermanites seldom visited. Curt was waiting at a crossroads; he looked pale and grim and he wasted no breath saying hello.
“Cabin’s down there. Detective Boggus is watching it. You two wait here until I get this stuff strung out.”
He took the two suitcases and disappeared into the dripping woods. After a half hour he came back.
“Okay. We’ll go in close.”
We got out of the car and closed the doors silently. We started down the dirt road; I was too tense to ask questions. Suddenly Curt stopped and motioned us close:
“The cabin’s right around this bend. You two go in there — ” he pointed to a break in the sumac which lined the road “ — and hide where you can see the action. I’ll knock on the door and see if I can startle Gil into making a move.”
Gaby motioned me to go first; I guess she assumed I was an experienced woods-runner. We crawled through the underbrush; each time I brushed against a sapling it dumped a shower of droplets on me. We were both soaked by the time we came in view of the cabin. It was a sprawling lodge with a green roof and brown siding. The forest surrounded it from three sides, making it a perfect hidden love nest. I wondered how many Sherman women knew the inside of it; I wondered who Gil had with him now. There was no sound; the only sign of occupancy was Gil’s convertible standing just outside the door.
I saw Curt walking toward the door, his shoes squishing in the mud. He knocked loudly and waited, his eyes roving the woods. They passed ever us without pause, so I decided we were well hidden.
After a moment Gil opened the door. His eyes widened at the sight of Curt; he stepped out quickly and jerked the door shut behind him. His hairy shanks protruded from beneath a maroon silk bathrobe. He stood blinking in the light, looking rather more embarrassed than scared. His face looked stiff and painted, like a theatrical mask. I couldn’t hear the conversation, but Curt obviously wanted to go inside and Gil didn’t want him to. Finally Curt squared his shoulders as though he were about to shove Gil aside and open the door. Gil shrugged; he opened the door and called out a name. It sounded like “Bunny” but it must have been “Benny” because a young man appeared in the door. He looked slim and girlish, with long hair and a narrow, large-eyed face which also had a painted look. He frowned at Curt and pouted his full red lips. Curt turned abruptly and started walking away. Puzzled, I heard Gil call out in a plaintive tone which didn’t sound like Gil’s voice.
“Say, old fellow, you don’t plan to noise this around Sherman, do you?”
“No,” said Curt gruffly, “I won’t.”
Gil slid his arm around the boy’s shoulders and the two went inside. Their attitudes were those of a husband and wife who’d just gotten rid of an unwelcome visitor and abruptly I understood. My face prickled with embarrassment, whether for Gil or Curt or just for the human condition, I wasn’t sure. I looked into Gaby’s wide eyes and saw that she understood it too.
At the car, Curt discharged Detective Boggus with a check; he was a short, chubby man with a dozen black hairs combed carefully over a bald pate, not at all my idea of a private detective. Curt loaded the recording equipment in his car — telling Gaby to erase it, since it was useless, and to drive on home. “I’ll ride back with Velda,” he said.
For a time we drove in silence, then he said: “You understood the scene back there?”
“Yes.”
“How do you feel about Gil?”
I had to think, because I’d identified so closely with Curt that I’d felt only disappointment at the failure of his trap. “About Gil? I think … all that muscle, manhood … what a terrible waste.”
He laughed abruptly. “That’s funny as hell. I’ve heard men say exactly the same thing about an attractive Lesbian.” He sobered abruptly. “But that explains Gil’s absences … and why he worked so hard to get a reputation as a ladies’ man. I’ll have to take him off the list for good. That kid was wearing lipstick; Gil had it smeared all over his face. You wouldn’t fake that.” He grimaced. “Stop here. I need a drink.”
It was a little gas station and honky-tonk; the kind you see around the country with names like Burntwood Inn and Cozy Dell. This one was called Pine Cove Tavern and was crowded (there was no work in the fields because of the rain) with men in overalls and a couple of women in print dresses. We drew stares as we walked to a booth in the back. I felt wicked and daring, and though it was unlikely that any Shermanites would see me, I found that I didn’t really care if they did. I told Curt to order me a boilermaker: a glass of beer with a shot of bourbon inside it. He ordered the same for himself and drank silently for a few minutes. Finally he said: “You’ve been patient, Velda, working in the dark. Now I’ll tell you something, but I’ve got to have your word you’ll keep the secret.”
“Okay. You’ve got it.”
“Specifically, I want you not to tell Lou.”
I stared at him. I was mad at Lou at the moment, but I didn’t like the position I was being put in. “I don’t know if I should promise that, Curt.”
He shrugged and drank his drink. He wasn’t going to tell. Finally I asked: “Does it concern Lou?”
“Yes.”
“And me?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’ve got to tell me.”
“Promise first.”
“Curt, I’ll throw this beer in your face.”
“Go ahead.”
“Look, does it … I mean, if I don’t tell Lou, will it get him into trouble?”
“No.”
“He won’t suffer?”
“The incident is done and past. If it were known in Sherman, people might smile, but nobody would blame him. It will only add to your fund of knowledge concerning your husband, but nothing which will work to your advantage.”
“God, I’ve got to know. I promise not to tell Lou.”
“Okay. Remember that night you met me in the store, and I searched for hidden microphones?”
“Yes.”
“Lou followed you.” I gasped. “No!”
“I watched after you went in, remember? He drove his pickup past the head of the alley and parked somewhere. Later he came back and stood in the shadows. He didn’t see me watching him.”
“You didn’t say anything then.”
“I was waiting to see what he’d do.”
“He didn’t let the air out of your tires?”
“No. He was there all the time. When Gaby honked, he disappeared.” I felt angry and prickly. “Damn him. Of all the sneaky …” I looked at Curt, who was smiling. “Why did you tell me this now?”
“I need some information from you.” I looked down at my drink. I felt depressed. “About Lou?”
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “If you suspect Lou you … you’re crazy. He was in bed when the phone calls came. He was home the night that Sandy was killed. He was in Omaha when my sister Anne was killed. He was in the alley the night the air was let out of your tires — ”
He was nodding. “I know all that, Velda. But he’s a common denominator. He was Jerry Blake’s partner, and Jerry Blake made a pass at you. To a jealous man that’s a motive for murder right there….”
“He isn’t jealous. And he didn’t know.”
“We aren’t sure. Even if he didn’t he profited by Jerry’s death. He took over the store; he had partner’s insurance on Jerry and he collected that. And when Ethel’s husband died he bought another store cheap. I don’t know his relationship to Anne, but there was Mart. He married you when Mart was killed — ”
“Curt, I won’t listen to another word.”
“All right, let me put it another way. When Gil Sisk faded out as a suspect, it left me with nothing”
“Johnny Drew.”
“Okay, Johnny Drew. Anne was about to leave him, that’s a possible motive for killing her. But how can you tie him with the others?”
“He worked for Jerry Blake and Jerry fired him. Okay? And Mart … I don’t know. Once Johnny said he’d been in love with me all his life. That could have been drunk talk, or it could have been true. There’s something else. Johnny gambled a lot, and sometimes he was terribly lucky. Once he took Anne to Bermuda on his winnings. She came back alone, wired home for money because he’d lost again. He used to disappear after he’d make a killing. People figured he was living up his winnings, but who knows? To me he’s a prime suspect.”
“Okay. But he’s disappeared.”
“Find him.”
“I will, but I need some more help. Your husband’s a smart man, probably smarter than you think. I could use his help. If I clear him I can trust him.”
“Is that why you’ve been playing games with me? Waiting until I was ready to spy on my husband?”
“Spy?” He looked thoughtful. “Okay, call it spying if you like.”
I had a giddy sensation which didn’t come from the liquor I’d drunk. I’d just looked into myself and it was like looking down a deep well; I found to my surprise that Curt had timed me perfectly, because I was ready.
“What do you want to know about Lou” I asked.
“Everything,” he said. “Everything you know.”