Shirley Murphy - The Cat, the Devil, and Lee Fontana

“She’s been out all night looking for you,” Jimson said, “looking for your car. She started to cry when she knew you were all right, that you weren’t lying dead somewhere.” The officer paused, a frown touching his round, smooth face. “She said to tell you she wasn’t bringing Sammie, said Sammie has a cold, she’s left her with Caroline.” The officer colored a little. “She said to tell you she loves you.” Quickly he turned away again, locking the outer door behind him.

Morgan stared after him. Of course she wouldn’t bring Sammie, not here to see him locked behind bars just as in her nightmare. What had Becky told Sammie when he hadn’t come all night, when Sammie didn’t hear him get up and shower this morning, when he didn’t appear at the breakfast table?

What would she tell Sammie if he didn’t come home at all, if this couldn’t be straightened out, if he was kept in jail and was arraigned and even tried, a prisoner escorted back and forth to the courtroom? Thinking about what might lie ahead of him turned him shaky, cold and despondent again. How could he be charged with murder? He had killed no one. Not even if he’d been drugged would he kill a man—except in the war, he thought, bitterly.

There was only one explanation for his long lapse of memory, his long and debilitating sleep, and that was that Falon had given him some drug. Easy enough for Falon to get drugs, maybe some kind of prescription that was passed around among Falon’s sleazy friends. Opium, maybe, that was easy enough to get, it was prescribed for colds and the flu. Dover’s Powder, he thought it was called, something like that. He supposed, unless they found the Coke bottle, there was no way to tell. He doubted the Rome cops would go looking for Coke bottles, as surly as they’d been. And even then, could a chemist or pharmacist find such a thing?

Sitting on the sagging bunk, he put his face in his hands, sick and cold with fear. No matter what Becky told Sammie about why he wasn’t home, at some point Sammie would have to learn the truth, and what would that do to her? They’d tried never to lie to Sammie, even when she was very small; only those few times that, because she was so young, the truth would have been inexplicable to her. Now, this morning, would Becky lie, so that Sammie wouldn’t know so soon that her worst nightmare had come true? He couldn’t bear to think of his little girl’s terror. Or of Becky’s own pain, when she heard the inexplicable charge of murder. What could he have done last night—what could Falon have done—to make this happen, to hurt the two people in the world whom Morgan loved more than life itself?

He and Becky had been sweethearts since before high school, they had married the week after they graduated, just a small wedding in her mother’s garden. He lay thinking about their honeymoon at Carter Lake, how happy they had been, how perfect life had been then. They had stayed in a cabin borrowed from a friend of Becky’s mother’s, had spent most of that week in bed, a little of it walking the woods or in leisurely twilight swims. They didn’t give a damn that they had little money and would have to live with Becky’s mother at first, in the bedroom behind the bakery kitchen. He liked Caroline, had always liked her, though they had had their moments when, in high school, he still wouldn’t stop running with Falon. That week on Carter Lake they would lie in bed spent from loving each other, planning how soon they could buy their own business and maybe even buy a house, planning how many children they would have, planning the beginning of their real lives as if they had only just been born.

The next week after their honeymoon he went to work as a mechanic at one of the three local gas stations, and Becky found a job with an accountant. When she’d learned enough, she left to start her own freelance accounts, to build her own new business. She had the same drive and stamina that had helped her mother succeed alone in the bakery business after Becky’s father died.

Becky had taken only a little time out to have Sammie, balancing her customers’ books while caring for the baby. When war was declared, he’d joined the navy rather than being drafted. During his absence, their need for each other, their passion had built intolerably. All the time he’d been gone his dreams had been only of Becky and of their baby girl, of the business they would build together and the large family they planned, of a rich, long life together.

When he got home, they had saved enough for a nice down payment on the old abandoned gas station. His mother would have scraped to send him to college but he’d never wanted that, he had no use for that kind of learning. He loved machines, he loved cars and trucks, anything mechanical, and he had gotten further education for that, for the learning he really wanted, in the navy.

All the time he was gone, Becky sent him pictures of Sammie. She had his pale Irish coloring, but Becky’s dark eyes and turned-up nose, she was the spirit of their spirits, she was proof of the eternity of their union, her existence filled him with an even deeper love of being alive in God’s world. At six years old Sammie had handled her bicycle like a pro, she knew how to make her own bed and how to mix and cut out cookies for her mother—but the minute he got home she became Daddy’s helper, his gamin-faced grease monkey.

Becky had already taught her the names and uses of most of his automotive tools and where they belonged in the pocketed black cloth wrapper where he kept them, and Sammie soon loved working on cars. And why not? A little training in mechanics wouldn’t hurt; when she grew older, she could do anything she wanted with her life. Becky kept her dressed in jeans and hoped, just as Morgan did, that the child would develop some other loves besides pretty clothes. Becky said frills would come soon enough without encouragement. Sammie made her mother laugh aloud when Morgan brought her home at night dirty faced, grease-stained clothes, dog tired, and so deeply happy with having helped her daddy.

Now, this morning, Sammie would be asking for him, she would want to know why he had left so early, even before he’d had breakfast. Maybe Becky would tell her he’d gotten home late and left early to work on a special car for one of his longtime customers. But Sammie was only a little girl. When she did at last learn the truth, how would she cope with this? How could she ever sleep again, knowing that any nightmare, any terrible dream, would be sure to come true?

He had turned away from the bars, was smearing tears away with the back of his hand, when the barred door clanged open behind him. Morgan turned, ashamed of crying, looking up at Jimson. The officer motioned Morgan out, walking behind him. “Becky’s in the visiting room.”

“She’s alone?” Morgan asked.

“She’s alone,” Jimson said. Sergeant Trevis met them halfway down the hall and the tall, lean officer gestured Morgan toward the little visiting room, standing behind him as he entered.

Becky stood on the far side of the table that occupied the center of the room, her knuckles white where she gripped its edge, her face drawn and pale. The room was hot and stuffy, the one small, barred window behind her was open but admitted only hot, humid air laced with gas fumes from the street, the traffic noise loud and distracting. Morgan approached the table, stopping at Trevis’s direction. He and Becky stood looking across at each other, separated as if they were strangers.

“Did they tell you what happened?” Morgan said. “Do you know what the charges are about?”

Behind him, Trevis stepped on in and closed the door. When Morgan turned to look at him, Trevis looked politely away. Morgan wished they could be alone. He knew Trevis would record in memory their every stilted word. James Trevis, thin and rangy, had played basketball in high school two years ahead of Morgan, then had served a hitch in the marines, had returned home to continue with the law enforcement he had learned as a military policeman. Morgan glanced at him again, and moved on around the table. Trevis looked away, and didn’t stop him. Morgan put his arms around Becky, they stood for a long time in silence, desperately holding each other.