Джон Макдональд - You Live Once

“It never occurred to me that Nadine would be suspected. I hoped the police would suspect some prowler, or some business enemy. After her mind started to go, I told her that I had done it. I told her why. I couldn’t reach her, she didn’t understand what I was saying. I had done that to her. Once I knew she was incurable there seemed little point in confessing. I had my own wife to think about, an infant daughter, another child on the way. I contemplated suicide. I was mentally sick and physically sick for a long time. Eventually I recovered. Had it not been for Rolph’s evil actions, Nadine would not have lost her mind. Once I had decided that, I was able to regain my physical and mental health.”

He was silent for a long time. Kruslov stirred in his chair but did not speak. Pryor’s face was still, and he was far away in old memories.

Pryor looked up with a little start. “Rolph’s death and Nadine’s collapse left me with the responsibility for the school child, Mary, and the infant, John. I had never had any trouble with John. He is brilliant, devious, and of a metaphysical turn of mind. But his mind is stronger than his body. He has never evidenced the weaknesses of the flesh. Mary was a different problem. I have thought about her a great deal. She was born old. She was born with a knowledge of evil. Often as I beat her, I could never subdue the evil in her. Once she became of age and began to receive her own income, I no longer had any hold over her. She hated me. She hated me because of the punishments I had inflicted for her own good. With the devilish wisdom of her black heart, she began to punish me in turn. She decided to debauch me and my daughters.

“She told me of her physical affairs. She flaunted her body at me. She laughed at me and tried to create in me a desire for her flesh. She spoke of my sister, her mother, and inferred that the relationship between us had been diseased, unnatural. I knelt on sharp stones for hours at a time, praying for guidance. I had begun to desire her and I could not cut that evil longing out of my heart.”

In the beginning he had spoken tersely, factually. Now his voice had deepened and there was almost a biblical cadence in his words.

“When she would go away I would begin to heal myself, but on her return I would turn again to paths of error. At last she taunted me with the affair she was having with a married man, Dodd Raymond, son of old friends. She taunted me with that as she had taunted me with vile details of her affair with young Yeagger. She wished to punish me for the fancied cruelties I had practiced on her when she was younger. She spoke of a rented place where she would meet Raymond. I saw that she would spend her life spreading her own kind of evil. I told her her father had been evil and he had died. She looked at me then with a special kind of recognition. Maybe my face had shown her too much. I knew that she had begun to suspect me. I knew then that she would have to die also. Once I had decided it, I felt cleansed.

“When my family went to the lake a week ago last Saturday, a week ago yesterday, I parked near the Locust Ridge Club and followed her in her car when she left. I thought she was with Raymond. I thought they would go to the rented place she spoke of. I followed them until they turned into a driveway in the old part of the city. To make certain, I turned around and went back and turned into the driveway. My headlights were on them and I saw them clearly in carnal embrace. I returned to my home to wait for her. I expected her to be very late. She came sooner than I expected. As with her father, I mercifully decided to give her a last chance. I told her I wished to talk to her.

“She listened for a long time, quite patiently. I told her how she had to combat the evil she had inherited. I spoke calmly to her. When I was through she laughed at me. She jeered at me and said unforgivable things to me. I walked away from the car, trembling. I went in the house and took a sock from my bedroom and went out and filled the toe with coarse dirt. When she came walking toward the house, humming to herself, I struck her as hard as I could, caught her as she fell and put her back in the car.

“I thought for a long time. Raymond had broken vows. I found a strange key in her purse. I drove back to the apartment, left her in the car. The key opened the door. I went in and found him in bed, breathing heavily, smelling of drink. I struck him twice, as hard as I could, to prevent his awakening. In the darkness his head was clearly visible on the pillow. His breathing changed and that was all. I carried her into the dark apartment. She seemed to have no weight at all. I placed her in the closet. I lighted a match and saw a belt hanging there. I placed it around her neck and drew it tight. I knelt in the closet doorway in the darkness. I could hear a faint whistle of breathing. I tightened the belt a bit more and I could hear nothing.

“I waited a long time and began to tremble. I thrust her further back into the closet, closed the door, closed the outside door and drove away. I did not sleep that night. Early in the morning I called my wife at the lake and said that Mary had not come home and I was worried. Myrna drove down from the lake. It was minutes before she arrived that I happened to see Mary’s purse near the edge of the drive where I had struck her...”

“The car, her car,” Kruslov said softly.

“I drove her car from Sewell’s driveway and abandoned it near Highland. I walked two miles to the farm and drove back to my home in one of the jeeps. I rubbed my hands on the parts of her car I had touched, to smear my fingerprints. I hid her purse and the key in my bureau. After my wife returned from the lake and we phoned Stine, I waited for Raymond to be found with the body in that apartment. We told Stine that Mary had been at the club with the Raymonds. But it turned out I had struck Sewell. When the body was not found, I guessed that Sewell had taken it away somehow. I did not want Sewell punished. I suspected that he and Mary had been intimate, but I had no proof.

“I wanted to talk to Sewell, to find out if he too should be punished. I waited one night near his apartment, the night Mary’s body had been found. He drove in with Yeagger. I was behind a tree. They came close to me and fought. I got a tire iron from my car. Yeagger was choking Sewell. I struck him from behind. I thought I had killed him. Sewell still breathed. I left.

“Sewell’s arrest troubled me. I visited him in his cell. He seemed honest. He disclaimed carnal knowledge of my niece. I was afraid that once again, as with Nadine, the innocent would be punished. I began to think of confession and suicide. I was the instrument of the vengeance of the Lord, but He did not want me to punish the innocent.

“When Raymond phoned me to set a place to speak to me in private, I had no idea what he wanted. I had him meet me at the farm on Friday night. He spoke cautiously. Suddenly I realized what he wanted. Mary had hinted of her suspicions that perhaps I had killed her father. She had told him of the relationship between herself and me. Raymond had a business venture in mind. I would furnish funds. He said he could insure a good return. Otherwise he would go to the police with his suspicions, and he felt there would be enough to warrant reopening the investigation. I told him I would have to think it over. I told him to wait there. He showed me the gun he was carrying.

“I went back to my home and recovered Mary’s purse from its hiding place and took it back out there with me. The sock heavy with dirt had worked so well that I used it another time. It did not take long to catch him off guard. I spoke of large sums of money and his greed diluted his caution. He was a heavy man, but as when I carried Mary, he seemed astonishingly light. I removed my shoes so as not to leave telltale marks on the roof of his car. The most difficult part was holding him upright while I knotted the tow line around his neck. He began to recover consciousness as I held him upright. I put the purse in one side pocket and the key in the other.