Маргарет Миллар - Do Evil In Return

“It’s the first time I’ve ever been invited to lunch to discuss autopsy reports.”

“I specialize in being absolutely different and unique, like Miss Schiller’s fingerprints.”

“In that case...”

“You’ll come? Good.”

“Where shall we go? I have to leave a phone number with Miss Schiller.”

“The Green Onion.”

“All right.”

The Green Onion, in spite of its name, was a good French restaurant in the heart of town. They sat in a back booth and Charlotte ordered an omelet and a green salad from a waitress who spoke with a phony French accent and called her Madame.

Easter said he wanted chops.

The waitress raised a pair of impossible black eyebrows. “Choaps? What kind of choaps, Monsieur?”

“Any kind. Lamb, pork, veal. Doesn’t matter.”

“Well reely,” the girl said and moved away with an indignant swing of hips. (People never acted so peculiar back home in Buffington Falls, Iowa.)

“Did you get any sleep last night?” Easter said.

“Enough.”

“I’m sorry the police routine took so long.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” The last she remembered of the routine was a policeman in uniform putting a waterproof tarpaulin over the place where Tiddles had lain — over everything, the wardrobe and the bed springs, the tangled weeds and rusted cans.

Easter put the briefcase on the table and took out several typewritten sheets of paper and a dozen enlarged photographs.

“Why are you taking the trouble to tell me about the autopsies?” Charlotte said.

He raised his head quickly. “I thought you’d be interested.”

“Is that all?”

“What do you mean, is that all?”

“I thought — I imagined you had some other motive.”

“No other motive, no.”

But she didn’t like the way he smiled. She had the feeling that he was setting a trap for her, and she couldn’t elude the trap because she didn’t know why or where it was being set.

“Violet’s autopsy was done first,” Easter said, “so I’ll tell you about it first. It’s a fairly clear case of suicide.”

“Why?”

“I’ll give you the main evidence. The first picture here is one of Violet when she was found.” Charlotte looked at it. Violet, but not the Violet she had seen two days before, and not the smiling pretty girl whose picture had been printed in the morning paper. This Violet was hardly recognizable because the lower half of her face was covered with white foam like soapsuds.

Easter’s eyes were on her. “I know you’re a doctor,” he said, “but I don’t know how much personal experience you’ve had with violent deaths like drowning.”

“Very little. You won’t hurt my feelings by being too explicit, if that’s what you mean.”

“Good. The foam is typical of death by drowning. It’s part mucus from the throat and windpipe, and part sea water. If she was dead or unconscious when she entered the water the foam wouldn’t be there. It’s indicative of a violent struggle for air. In attempting to breathe she gasped in some sea water. The irritation to the membranes caused the mucus, which mixed with the water and got churned up into foam by her efforts to breathe. The fact that her mouth is open is also typical of drowning deaths.”

The waitress returned with the order. Charlotte put her fork into the omelet; it was light and very fluffy, like fine foam. She pushed it away.

Easter hadn’t even noticed the indeterminate-looking chops that had been placed in front of him. He said, “The next picture is a close-up of Violet’s left hand — the right, as I told you before, was missing; it may have been eaten by a shark or amputated by the propeller of a big boat. Since it was obviously a postmortem injury we didn’t bother trying to fix the cause.”

Violet’s fist was clenched, and a long thread of sea-grass was caught between her second and third fingers. She still wore her wedding-ring.

“When we opened the fist,” Easter added, “we found a small pellet of tar from the underwater oil wells, and also deep indentations made by her finger nails on the palm of her hand. A drowning person clutches at anything. In the next picture...”

“Please. I don’t think I want to see any more pictures right now.”

“Sorry.” He put the photographs back in the briefcase. “I didn’t mean to spoil your lunch. We won’t talk about Violet until later.” He smiled, that oddly warm and unexpected smile that always surprised her, made her feel friendly when she was on the point of antagonism. “It’s funny, the only thing we’ve ever talked to each other about is death. I don’t know whether you go to the movies or what kind of books you like, or whether you clean your teeth before or after breakfast, or how you like your eggs fried.”

“Our relationship isn’t a personal one.”

“Perhaps not. But I think it is.” He hesitated, his fork in mid-air. “Well, do you go to movies?”

“When I have the time.”

“Would you go with me?”

“I don’t know,” she said, honestly. “I don’t really know.”

“Why not?”

“I feel that I shouldn’t.”

He broke open a roll and buttered it. He had immense hands that moved with precision. “I see. You’re being true to Ballard.”

“Bal...?” Her mouth opened, closed again. A pulse beat in her temple, fast and hard. “How did you — find out?”

“My Gestapo works night and day. Besides, you should be more careful to destroy his letters.”

“Letters?”

He took an envelope out of his coat pocket and flung it on the table with a gesture of contempt or of anger. “This was in the brown lizard purse last night. I removed it before anyone else had a chance to see it. Accept it with my compliments.”

It was the letter — the only letter — that Lewis had written to her while he was fishing in the Sierras. She had kept it in her purse to reread when she felt lonely, not thinking that the purse would be stolen, and that the letter had been written on Lewis’ office stationery.

Easter began to quote, word for word, his tone suddenly soft and venomous: “Charley dearest, what a rotten time I’m having without you. Everything is bleak and empty...”

She tore the letter into pieces. “Do you always read other people’s mail?”

“When I nave a reason.”

“You’re a fraud and a cheat.”

“I don’t think so,” he said simply. “I’m human, and I guess I’m suffering from a very common human frailty — jealousy.” When she didn’t respond, he added, “It’s a sucker’s racket, Charlotte — playing around with another woman’s husband.”

“It’s my business, not yours.”

“I’d like to know how Ballard did it. I might pick up a few pointers.”

“Pointers?”

“Oh how he got you to fall for him so hard, I meant I’d like to do the same thing.”

“You’re insulting...”

“I don’t intend to be. I admire you. You’re a strong woman. It would take a lot of strength to live with you. I have it. You’d never lean on me, but I don’t have to be leaned on to feel superior. I feel superior anyway.”

“And you always will,” she said bitterly. “Your ego will take care of that nicely.”

He looked grave. “It wouldn’t be very smart to latch onto someone without an ego. He’d make too many demands on yours.”

“I won’t — I won’t discuss the — the matter.”

“Very well. Just let it creep into your subconscious now and then. That’s good enough for the present.” The waitress came with the coffee. Easter changed the subject, his voice and glance impersonal again, as if he had the ability to turn her on and off in his mind like a faucet. “There was a wallet found in your purse too — no money left in it, of course. That accounts for the wine-party in the kitchen. Four glasses, four merrymakers; we can presume they were Voss and his wife and O’Gorman and the old man Tidolliani.”