Evan Hunter - Lizzie

What would she tell her father when he returned?

Nothing, she decided.

We know nothing of upstairs. We heard nothing, we saw nothing. We were going about our normal business, we know nothing. Maggie was outside washing the windows, I was in the dining room, ironing; neither of us—

She tested her flats again, spitting on the bottom of one of them and causing not so much as a sizzle. She wanted to be ironing when he came home, innocently occupied with a mundane household chore. She thought of adding more coal to the stove, decided that wood would provide a faster, hotter fire, and discovered there was no kindling in the scuttle. She went immediately into the cellar and found several old pieces of board near the woodpile, dry and covered with flaking paint, perfect for the instant fire she wanted. She found the hatchet in its usual place, stuck in the chopping block near the furnace. There were other axes and hatchets in the cellar, but this was the only one with a decent chopping edge. The claw-hammer hatchet was as dull as butter, and a third hatchet lay discarded in a box someplace, covered with the crude ashes her father had rubbed on it in an attempt to free it of rust, testing it at last on the chopping block, its handle breaking from the force of his blows.

She started to chop one of the boards into narrow strips, almost nicked her finger in the uncertain light, thought again of her father’s surely imminent return and hurried upstairs again carrying the boards and the hatchet. Standing first one board and then the next on the stovetop, she chopped them lengthwise into kindling, put the hatchet into the coal scuttle, and then knelt to feed the wood into the firebox. The coals there had dwindled almost to ashes; small wonder that her flats had never properly heated. Wondering if there was heat enough left to ignite the wood, she closed the door to the firebox, stood watching the stove for a moment and then looked up at the clock again.

From the kitchen closet, she took the small ironing board and carried it into the dining room. She was setting it on the dining-room table when she heard the sound of a carriage outside — had he hired a hack to take him home? She rushed to the window to look out at the street. She saw only Dr. Handy riding by, his head craned over his shoulder for a look up the street toward the Kelly house and Mr. Wade’s store. In almost that same instant she heard the screen door opening and then clattering shut again, and she turned toward the kitchen with a start, expecting it to be her father, totally uprepared for him, relieved when she saw that it was only Maggie. Her heart leaped again when she saw the look on Maggie’s face.

“He’s here,” Maggie said breathlessly.

“My father!”

“The one you had me send away,” Maggie said, shaking her head. “He’s up the street, across the street. My God, could he have seen?”

“Seen? Seen what?”

“What you done upstairs,” Maggie said. “He was about the house outside...”

“The shutters were closed.”

“Then why’s he come back?”

“Are you sure it’s...”

“The same light suit of clothes, yes, the same necktie. Oh my God, if he spied what you done...”

“He couldn’t have!”

“But if he did!”

“No one did!”

“He’s acting funny. Swaying...”

“Then he’s drunk,” Lizzie said flatly. “He’s been drinking because you sent him away. Don’t go outside again. Stay in here, do the windows inside. I want you in here when...”

“I don’t want to be in here,” Maggie said, shaking her head again. “I don’t want to see your father. Not with her lying up there dead.”

“We know of no one upstairs. Dead or otherwise.”

“She’s dead up there, you killed her!”

“Fetch your handbasin. Wash the sitting-room windows. Nothing has happened, nothing that we know of. They’ll ask us where we were and what we were doing. We were going about our normal business, do you understand? We heard nothing...”

Maggie was shaking her head again.

“I tell you we heard nothing and saw nothing; we were going about our...”

“You can hear all in this house,” Maggie said. “I can even hear themselves when they roll over in bed.”

“But we heard nothing. And saw nothing. We know nothing but what we ourselves were doing. Whatever else transpired, we did not hear or see.”

“Will you tell that to your father?”

“Yes. Now fetch your basin,” she said, and Maggie hurried out of the room.

I’ll tell him nothing, she thought. I’ll inquire about the mail, I’ll mention that Mrs. Borden is not yet back, I’ll — well, wait. I’ll say... he’ll wonder where she’s gone and what’s keeping her... I’ll say... well, yes, she told me there are people sick in town, I’ll say she had a note from someone who’s sick and went to visit... yes... that will explain her lengthy absence. And when later... when later she’s not yet returned, we’ll notify the police in concern for her, and they shall be the ones to find her upstairs, the police, and we shall all be astonished and amazed and explain to them that we were going about our normal business with no idea whatever of what horror rested just above our heads, yes, that’s how I’ll do it, if only he would hurry home before my resolve—

She heard a clicking at the front door.

Someone trying to insert a key into the lock.

Her father!

All she planned to tell him evaporated at once, all the facade she hoped to present to him crumbled in that instant of his imminent entrance, and she fled for the stairs, planning to lock herself in her room, hide from him, and was halfway up the stairs when she heard the doorbell ringing insistently, and then Maggie’s voice shouting, “Coming!” and then more softly as she crossed the sitting room and moved toward the front door, “Miss Lizzie?” and the doorbell rang again. She heard Maggie setting something down, the basin she had gone to fetch, heard the doorbell again, the impatient clamor of it, and she stood quite still on the staircase, listening as Maggie fumbled with first the spring lock and then the key.

“Oh, shit !” Maggie said, and on the staircase Lizzie laughed, and then suppressed the laugh as she heard the door opening wide and her father saying, “I’ve forgotten my key. I’ve been trying the wrong key. Took you long enough to open this door.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Maggie said, “I was washing the windows.” Her voice was steady and calm. She would be all right. She would behave as she’d been instructed.

“Still at them, eh?” her father said. “Well, then, where’s Mrs. Borden?”

They had moved into the sitting room now. Lizzie stood silent and motionless on the staircase, her eyes level with the second-floor landing, her stepmother’s body clearly visible through the open door to the guest room.

“I don’t know where she might be, sir,” Maggie said. “I saw her leaving at nine, somewhat at nine.”

“Not back yet, eh?”

“I haven’t seen her, sir.”

“Well, go about your business,” he said. “Will you be long in here?”

“Only a bit, sir.”

“I’ll use the dining room then.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where’s Lizzie?” he asked.

“I... don’t know, sir.”

A slight wavering of the voice.

“Well, is she in the house, or has she gone out?”

“I think she’s in the house, sir.” A pause. “I haven’t seen her.”

“Well, do your windows; I’ll get out of your way.”

“Yes, sir, thank you.”

Lizzie looked once again at the open door to the guest room. She took a deep breath and went down the stairs. Her father was sitting in the dining room. There was a parcel wrapped in white paper on the dining-room table, and alongside that the mail: several legal-sized envelopes, a larger yellow envelope, a long brown pasteboard cylinder. Maggie was coming from the kitchen now, carrying a stepladder. Her eyes met Lizzie’s. Neither of them said a word.