Ричард Деминг - Hit and Run

Helena said, “I think I’d like a brandy with my coffee, dear. May I pour you one?”

Powers looked up in surprise. Helena rarely suggested a drink, though she was usually agreeable if the suggestion came from him.

“All right,” he said. He studied her more closely. “You’ve lost a little color, my dear. Aren’t you feeling well?”

“Quite well,” she said, rising and moving to the liquor cabinet. “It’s just the heat, I think. My blood thins out.”

She poured two thimbles of brandy and carried one to him. As soon as his face was buried in the paper again, she quickly tossed hers off, quietly poured another, and set it on the end table next to her chair. Absorbed in the paper, Powers didn’t notice.

The weekend passed slowly for Helena. On Friday Harry Cushman phoned to report that he had delivered the additional money to Calhoun. She had no opportunity to see Cushman over the weekend, however, and time always dragged heavily when she had to spend a long period in the company of her husband.

On Monday Lawrence Powers went to the bank in the morning despite the fact he was scheduled to leave for New York City in the afternoon. He told Helena to expect him home for lunch. This gave her an opportunity to phone Calhoun to make sure plans were unchanged. The private detective assured her that they were the same, and that he would pick up the car after dark that night.

Lawrence Powers was one of those men who arrive everywhere early. Although his plane wasn’t scheduled to leave until three thirty and it was only a twenty-minute drive to the airport, he was packed and ready to depart by one thirty.

From previous experience Helena should have been on guard against what happened. But she was too busy mentally rehearsing her explanation for driving her husband to the airport in the station wagon instead of the convertible for it to occur to her that she might have to sidetrack his officious helpfulness. She was first aware of danger when he strode in the back door just as she entered the kitchen from the front part of the house.

He announced cheerfully, “I pulled the car out for you. Ready to go?”

She subdued her first impulse — to dart to the kitchen window and stare out. With apparent unconcern she walked to it and gave the car in the driveway a seemingly casual glance. She didn’t even blink when she saw it was the green Buick. Powers had swung it sidewise to the rear of the house, so its damaged side couldn’t be seen from the kitchen window. Apparently he had both entered and got out of the car by the lefthand door, and hadn’t noticed the damage.

In a calm voice Helena said, “I meant to take the station wagon, dear. The convertible has a funny ping in the motor.”

Powers raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t notice it.”

“It doesn’t start until you reach about thirty miles an hour. I didn’t want to bother you with it. I meant to take it into the garage tomorrow, after you were gone.”

Picking up her bag from the kitchen table, she started toward the door. When her husband followed, she opened her bag as though searching for keys, then stopped in the doorway, blocking his way.

“I don’t seem to have a handkerchief, Lawrence,” she said over her shoulder. “Will you get one from my bureau while I put the convertible away and pull out the station wagon? Alice is upstairs, and can show you where I keep them.”

With a husbandly grumble, Powers turned to perform the chore. Helena went on out the back door and slipped under the wheel of the convertible.

She was slipping the key into the ignition lock when her husband’s impatient voice called from above, “Helena!”

Glancing up, she saw that he was leaning from an upstairs window. She said nothing, merely waiting to see what he wanted.

“Which kind of handkerchief?” he inquired in a loud voice. “One of those fancy ones, or one you can blow your nose on?”

“A plain one, dear,” she called.

She started the engine, her gaze still upturned. She knew that from his elevated position he could see right across the car, and she hoped that by keeping her gaze fixed on him she could keep his fixed on her face. But as the car began to move, his expression suddenly changed. At first his eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed again in shock and understanding.

Dropping her gaze, she drove the convertible back into the garage.

She had climbed from the car and was waiting quietly between it and the station wagon when Powers stormed into the garage. He was carrying his grip in one hand and a small plain handkerchief in the other. He dropped the grip on the garage floor, walked around behind the convertible, and squeezed into the narrow space between it and the wall. After staring at the damaged side for a moment, he backed out and rounded the car again to confront his wife.

In a horrified voice he said, “Helena, you killed that old man!”

Without inflection Helena said, “There are lots of green Buicks.”

With his eyes fixed on his wife’s face in shocked wonder, Powers slowly shook his head.

“Someone must have stolen the car and brought it back after the accident,” she said. “You know I was in bed at eleven that night.”

Slowly he shook his head again.

“I thought perhaps one of Alice’s boy friends did it,” she said. “I was afraid to mention it to you, because I knew you’d insist on firing her and calling the police. And she’s too good a maid to lose. I was going to have it fixed while you were gone.”

Powers’ shoulders slumped. In a weary voice he said, “You don’t even have imagination enough to think up a good story. What have you been doing? Cruising the bars alone after I’m asleep? Or meeting a lover?”

She said nothing, merely continuing to gaze at him without expression.

“Don’t you have any emotion at all?” he asked, violence in his tone for the first time she remembered. “God knows there’s never been any passion in you. But you might at least look sorry for taking a human life.”

She continued silent.

“Or do you have passion for other men?” he inquired bitterly. “Do you find men who can stir you on the streets at two thirty in the morning? Is that what you were doing?”

When she still made no reply, he brushed past her to the bench at the rear of the garage. The Powerses had five phone extensions, and one was in the garage. He picked up the phone.

Moving behind him, Helena said, “What are you doing, dear?”

“Phoning the police,” he said, and dialed 0 .

Helena didn’t argue or plead with him. She knew her husband well enough to realize it would be useless. Having a direct mind, she took direct action.

She lifted a heavy wrench from an assortment of tools lying on the bench and brought it down on the back of her husband’s head. He fell to his knees, tried to support himself by grasping the edge of the bench, then lost his grip and collapsed face down.

Helena lifted the dangling phone and replaced it in the cradle. Carefully she laid the wrench back exactly where it had been. She walked without hurry to the door of the garage and ran her gaze over all the rear windows of the house to make sure Alice wasn’t watching from one of them. Satisfied that she wasn’t, Helena pulled closed the sliding door on one side until it blocked Powers’ prone body from view.

Then she returned to her husband and stooped over him. He was unconscious but breathing regularly, and she judged that he was not seriously hurt. She also judged, by the lump already forming on the back of his head, that he would stay unconscious for a time.

She rose, took a cigarette from her bag, lit it, and contemplated the unconscious man moodily. For ten minutes she stood without moving, thinking steadily. Then she carefully stepped out the cigarette butt and bent over him again.