Evan Hunter: Lizzie

She did not want to be in this house when he came downstairs again, could not face the accusing look in his eyes, could not hope to answer the questions he would most certainly put. Her eyes darted. Like a bird poised for precarious flight, she raised her arms, her hands fluttering, and turned from where she stood in the kitchen doorway, and then rushed into the entry and threw open the screen door, knowing only that she had to get away from here, run, hide, run!

Unmindful of whichever neighbors might be watching, she hurtled in terrified flight into the backyard, and then stopped dead when she saw the carriage outside the fence, standing near a tree. An open buggy, a box buggy with a high top seat and a high back. A man was sitting in the carriage. For a shocking instant she thought it was he again, the pale young man returning; had he witnessed what she’d done in that upstairs room? But no, the shutters had been closed. And then she saw that this man was dressed differently, wearing a brown hat and a black coat, and she dismissed him from her mind as but a passing stranger, her eyes darting again, wondering where, where, seeing the barn and running toward it, thinking she would hide in the hayloft, cover herself with hay, hide there forever from the wrath of her father, a witness in effect though he had not been present, a witness the moment he put together candlestick and candle.

She stopped again just outside the barn door, reaching for the pin in the hasp, and then hesitated, pulling back her trembling hand, realizing in a crystal instant that she could never hope to protest innocence if he found her cowering under the hay. She reversed her course at once, turning and starting slowly back for the house, knowing she had to confront him after all, face the wrath of a God sterner than the one who’d banished Eve from the garden, express surprise and shock, grief and concern, claim ignorance and innocence, I know nothing, I saw nothing, I heard—

She heard the sound of horses on the street outside as she crossed the yard from the barn to the house, turned her head to see a team and wagon — the ice-cream peddler, Mr. Lubinsky, his head craned for a look at her as she walked toward the back steps. The team went by, the wagon moved out of sight. She opened the screen door, and went into the house again.

The house was silent.

She did not move out of the kitchen. She stood near the cookstove, waiting, listening for the tiniest sound.

She heard his footfalls on the front stairs.

Unhurried, slow, ponderous.

She heard him entering the sitting room.

She did not move from where she stood near the coal scuttle.

He loomed suddenly in the doorframe between the kitchen and the sitting room. There was nothing in his hands, neither candlestick nor broken candle. Had he failed to make a connection? She looked into his eyes and saw there only stricken confusion. Her heart quickened. There was yet hope; he had not yet put it together.

“Someone has killed your mother,” he said. His voice was dull, lifeless, his eyes wide and staring.

“What?”

“Your mother...”

“What?”

“Your mother lies dead upstairs.”

“No,” she said at once, “that can’t be,” her eyes opening as wide as his were, hoping that her voice conveyed shock and disbelief. “She’s not yet back from town.”

“She’s slain upstairs,” her father said. “Oh, my God, Lizzie!”

“Father!” she said, and went to him, and he took her in his arms, and she stood close in his embrace, her heart fluttering; there was yet hope!

“We must... we shall have to notify the police,” he said.

“I’ll go at once.”

“And Dr. Bowen.”

“I’ll use his telephone.”

“She’s slain, Lizzie, oh, dear God...”

“Come lie down. I’ll run to Dr. Bowen’s. Come in the sitting room...”

“I shall fall if I move. Hold me, Lizzie.”

She held him close. He was weeping now. She patted him as she would a child, listening to the sounds of his grief and his shocked mutterings (“Oh, my God, the blood, the blood...”), consoling him, “Yes, Father, yes,” thinking it would be she herself who sounded the alarm (“Blood on the floor,” he said, “the walls, the bed, a broken candle on the...”), she who would run across the street to Dr. Bowen’s house, telephone the police, alert the neighbors — and suddenly she realized that his words had stopped, and his weeping as well. He moved his cheek from hers and held her slightly apart and looked into her eyes, puzzled.

“The candlestick,” he said.

Her heart leaped.

“Whoever did this... but you heard no one?”

“No one.”

“Saw no one?”

“No one.”

“But you were here, weren’t you?”

“I was here, certainly, but I heard...”

“Didn’t she scream? When he was bludgeoning her with... oh my God, my God!”

“Father, please lie down. I must fetch the police, we must have them here!”

“But how could...?” he said, and hesitated, and she saw in his eyes the same puzzlement again. And then he blinked and said, “No, it couldn’t have been, you brought it down for Maggie to polish.”

“Yes,” she said quickly. “Father...”

“When did you do that, Lizzie?” he asked gently and in the same puzzled voice.

“Do what, Father?”

“Bring the candlestick down.”

“Why... this morning,” she said. “When I came down this morning. Father, I must...”

“I saw no candlestick when you came down,” he said, still puzzled.

“Later,” she said.

“Brought it down later?”

“Yes.”

“Went upstairs to fetch it?”

“Yes.”

“And brought it down for Bridget to polish.”

“Yes.”

“Fetched it from the guest room.”

“Yes.”

“Did the candle fall from it then?” he asked.

He was working it out, oh God, he was putting it together!

“I... I really don’t...”

“When you went to fetch it?” he asked.

“Perhaps... well, yes, it must have.”

“And you didn’t stop to pick it up?”

“Well, I thought of picking it up, yes, I must have, but...”

“When you knew your mother would be having company? And had tidied the room?”

“I planned to do it later,” she said.

He looked directly into her eyes. They stood not two feet apart in the doorway to the sitting room, he in one room, she in the other. His voice when he spoke was stronger now.

“Was your mother up there when you went to fetch it?” he said. “The candlestick?”

“She’d already left,” Lizzie said.

“If the candlestick was the weapon...”

“It couldn’t have been,” she said quickly.

“If,” he shouted, and she fell silent.

He kept staring at her.

“How came it to be in the dining room?” he said.

“I told you. I...”

She hesitated.

“I...”

“Did you do this thing?” he asked.

She said nothing.

“Did you do this terrible thing?”

Still she said nothing.

“Why?” he asked. “Dear God, why? ”

Looking into his eyes, she said gently, “Father, she...” and could say no more, for continuing would have meant revealing to him the precipitating act, herself and Maggie in naked embrace, the act her stepmother had called monstrous and unnatural. When he saw that she would offer neither explanation nor excuse, he said, “Go from my sight, go!” and turned away from her and went into the sitting room. Like a child accepting punishment, she did as she’d been instructed, dutifully, obediently, going into the kitchen and standing silently by the cookstove, facing the wall, listening to the ticking of the clock. In the sitting room, the sofa springs protested under his weight as he fell back upon it. She heard him say, “Oh, God, oh, dear God,” and then all was silent save for the ticking of the clock.