Маргарет Миллар - Do Evil In Return

“In a sense.”

“I never could. I’m too sensitive.” Her lower lip began to tremble. “At least the girl is dead. She’s out of things now. She has no more troubles. Oh, I’m so tired. So awfully tired.”

“I’ll give you a sleeping capsule.”

Gwen’s eyes widened in quick panic. “No. No, I won’t take anything. I must be alert, in case he comes back, in case he tries...”

“There’s little danger of that. But I could call Mrs. Peters and ask her to stay with you for tonight.”

“No. She has her own family, her own worries. Doctor — Dr. Keating, what would you do if you were in my place?”

“I don’t know. Go to a hotel, perhaps.”

“But the dogs. There’s no one to look after them.”

“I can’t advise you anyway,” Charlotte said slowly. “Personal problems can’t always be worked out by objective reasoning. What I would do might be the opposite of what would be good for you to do.”

“That’s right, isn’t it? My, you’re so sensible and intelligent! I wish you knew my husband better. He likes intelligent women, maybe because I’m so stupid.” One corner of her mouth curved in a sad little smile. “I wish I had everything under control in my private life, the way you must have. I bet you have no problems at all.”

For Charlotte, it was the final irony. She looked at the French doll on the window seat. Its painted smile was knowing.

Easter was waiting for her. There was no need to ask him if he had found Voss and Eddie: The garage was dark.

He looked at her across the room. All the lamps were still burning and every line and angle of his face was distinct, grim.

“You’ve got a bad case of trouble, Charlotte.”

In silence she went to the big window where Lewis’ chair was, and stared down at the lights of the city. It was only five nights ago that she’d stood in this same place and wondered which of the city lights belonged to Violet. She had told Lewis about Violet that night, she’d said, “ Lewis, I think I made a mistake .”

Well, the mistake had grown, cancerously; its wild, malignant cells had spread from life to life until it covered them all, Violet and Eddie, Voss and his wife and the old man Tiddles; Easter and Lewis and Gwen and Mrs. Reyerling. Her mistake had infected each of them, but its final victim was herself, Charlotte Keating.

She said, without turning, “Have you reported it?”

“Not yet.”

“You will, though.”

“I have to.”

“I suppose you know it will mean the end of my life here, my work.”

“Yes.”

She closed her eyes. The lids felt dry and dusty. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? I meant only to help Violet when I drove down to Olive Street that night. My duty seemed so clear, so inescapable. I didn’t want to go to that house. I was afraid of it. I remember thinking so many things had happened there that one more wouldn’t even be noticed. I was wrong. I’ve done quite a few wrong things, I suppose; pushed the wrong buttons, knocked on the wrong doors.”

“You still have a chance,” Easter said, “if you can find Ballard.”

“Do you hate him so much you must try to drag him into this?”

“He’s not big enough to hate. And he’s getting smaller by the minute.”

“You talk so oddly.”

“It will make sense if you’ll listen. Or don’t you want to listen?”

“I’m not sure. I’m — mixed up. All these hints about Lewis...”

“I’ve tried to let you down easy, Charlotte. You wouldn’t come down. You were treading clouds, still are. When a cloud gets too heavy, it rains. Stormy weather.”

“Talk straight, please.”

“Trying to,” Easter said. “Ballard didn’t tell you he knew Violet?”

“He didn’t know her.”

“He did. He sent her to you.”

“No! I won’t believe it!”

“You must. It’s true. The child was his. He sent her to you knowing how you felt about people in a jam, hoping you’d help Violet get rid of the child, help Violet and save his skin at the same time.”

“No.” The feeble denial stuck in her throat. “He told me — the night I met him on the breakwater — he said he didn’t even know Violet. I believed him. He was telling the truth, I’m sure of it.”

“He may have been telling the truth, as far as he knew it. Maybe he didn’t remember the girl; maybe he never even knew her name, until he saw her picture in the paper the next day, her picture and the name of the little town she came from. He knew then.”

There was a long silence, broken only by the ticking of the dock on the mantel, the passing of the restless minutes.

“I’m not guessing,” Easter said. “I know he sent Violet to you because your name and address on the card found in your purse were written on the typewriter in Ballard’s study.”

“You’re framing him. You’re manufacturing evidence against him.”

“I don’t operate like that,” he said flatly, “even for the love of a lady. Want more proof?”

“No.”

“You could use it.” He took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and opened it for her to see. It was a photostatic copy of a sheet from the register of the Rose Court Motel, Ashley, Oregon, C. Vincent Rawls, Owner and Manager. Date, Feb. 26/49. Name, L. B. Ballard. Address, 48 °Corona del Mar, Salinda, California. Make of car, Cadillac, License, California 17Y205.

She couldn’t take her eyes off the name on the photostat. It had been written very carelessly and quickly, and she wasn’t sure whether the writing was Lewis’ or not. She said, “It doesn’t look exactly like Lewis’ writing.”

“It is.”

“And it proves nothing except that he stopped at Ashley for a night.”

“On February twenty-sixth.”

She didn’t reply, though she knew the significance of the date. It was the beginning of July now, and Violet had been four months gone with child when she died. But how could it have happened? Lewis wasn’t like that at all, Charlotte thought. He would never have looked at Violet — she was young enough to be his daughter, young and ignorant and not even pretty; and Lewis was a respectable man, a little stolid, a man who valued his place in the community and his reputation. Lewis and Violet. The thought made her sick. It stuck in her throat; it couldn’t be swallowed; it couldn’t be coughed up. Lewis and Violet. And the baby boy that had died with Violet was Lewis’ child; it might even have grown to look like him — the son that he’d always wanted, now in a garbage can in the morgue or already burned to dust in an incinerator. Poor Lewis, she thought. But running through her pity was an iron stripe of bitterness.

Easter was watching her, narrow-eyed. “I’m not interested in bringing Ballard to trial on moral grounds. That’s woman’s work. What he does with his spare weekends in Ashley or Cucamonga is no business of mine.”

“You’ve managed to make it your business. Do you also break into locked hotel rooms and peer over transoms and creep under...”

“I’m after a murderer,” Easter said. “Not a four-bit Romeo.”

She leaned her forehead against the window to steady herself. The lights of the city whirled, slowed, stopped. “Lewis is neither,” she said at last.

“He’s both.”

“No you have no proof.”

“I can’t prove that he killed Violet. But he’s made it easier for me by shooting Voss and O’Gorman and leaving the bodies in your garage.”

She turned to face him. “He wouldn’t do such a thing. Even if he were desperate, he wouldn’t involve me in such a mess. He loves me. You can laugh at that, but it’s true. He loves me.”

“He loves himself, too, and that’s the big passion. You’re running a poor second, Charlotte.”