A Stranger in My Grave (26 page)

That's when I should have stopped
, he thought.
I should have walked away right then.

Even now he didn't know why he hadn't stopped; he was just aware that the gnawing restlessness inside him disappeared when he was playing a game of danger, whether it was a simple matter of cheating at cards or defrauding a landlady, or whether it involved, as it did now, his own life or death.

“I don't believe you ever heard of me before,” Juanita said, and it was obvious from her tone that she wanted to believe it, that she was flattered by the notion of being recognized by strangers, like a movie star. “I mean, I'm not famous or anything, so how could you?”

“Well, I did.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Some other time.”

The idea of showing her the letter and watching her reactions appealed to his sense of dramatic irony. But the references to her­self were decidedly unflattering, and he was afraid to take a chance on making her angry again. Besides, the letter was, in its way, a very special one. Of all the times that Daisy had written to him, this was the only time she had ever expressed genuine and deep emotions.

Dear Daddy, I wish you were here tonight so you and I could talk about things the way we used to. Talking to Mother or Jim isn't the same. It always ends up not as a conversation, but as their telling me.

Christmas is nearly here. How I've always loved it, the gai­ety and the singing and the wrapping of presents. But this year I feel nothing. There is no good cheer in this childless house. I use that word, childless, with bitter irony: I found out a week ago to­day that another woman is giving—or has already given—birth to a baby fathered by Jim. I can almost see you now as you read this, and hear you saying, Now Daisy baby, are you sure you've got the facts straight? Yes, I'm sure. Jim has admitted it. And here's the awful thing about it—whatever I'm suffering, Jim is suffering twice as much, and neither of us seems able to help the other. Poor Jim, how desperately he's wanted children, but he will never even see this one. The woman has left town, and arrangements for her support have been made through Adam Burnett, Jim's lawyer.

After this letter is written, I will do my utmost to forget what has happened and to go on being a good wife to Jim. It's over and done with. I can't change anything, so I must forgive and forget. The forgiving is easy; the other might be impossible, but I'll try. After tonight, I'll try. Tonight I feel like wallowing in this ugly thing like a pig in a mudhole.

I've seen the woman many times. (How the ironies pile up once they start! It's as if they're self-multiplying like amoebae.) She has been a patient at the Clinic for years, off and on. Per­haps this is where Jim first met her while he was waiting for me. I haven't asked him, and he hasn't told me. Anyway, her name is Juanita Garcia, and she's been working as a waitress at the Velada Café, which is owned by a friend of her mother. She is married and has five other children. Jim didn't tell me this, either; I looked up her file at the Clinic. Also from her file I found out something else, and if you aren't already choking on ironies, try swallowing this one: Mrs. Garcia was arrested last week on charges of child neglect. I hope to God Jim never finds this out; it would only increase his misery to think of the kind of life his own child will have.

I haven't told Mother, but I suspect Jim has. She's going around with that kind of desperate, determined cheerfulness she puts on in emergencies. Like last year when I found out I was sterile, she drove me crazy counting blessings and pointing out silver linings.

One question keeps going through my mind: why did Jim have to tell me the truth? His confession hasn't lessened his own suffering. It has, in fact, added mine to his. Why, if he never intended to see the woman again, and the child, didn't he keep them both a secret? But I mustn't dwell on such things. I have promised myself I will forget, and I will. I must. Pray for me, Daddy. And please answer this.
Please.

Your loving daughter, Daisy

 

He hadn't answered it. At the time there were a dozen reasons why not, but as the years passed, he'd forgotten the reasons and only the fact remained: he hadn't answered this simplest of requests. Every time he opened the old suitcase, that word
please
flew up out of it and struck him in the face. . . .

Well, he was answering it now, and at a much greater risk than if he'd done it in the first place. It was a stroke of incredibly bad luck that the sister Camilla had referred to before he died had turned out to be Mrs. Rosario. And yet Fielding realized now that if he'd been thinking logically, he should have made some con­nection between Camilla, on the one hand, and Juanita, on the other. Daisy's letter was dated December 9. In it she stated she'd first heard about Juanita's child a week before, which would make it December 2. This was also the day Camilla had died and Juanita had left town. A connection between the two events was inescapable. And the link must be Mrs. Rosario, who, behind her crucifixes, madonnas, and shrines, seemed as devious an operator as Fielding himself.

“Ask your mother,” he said, “how she wangled that money.”

Juanita was stubborn. “Maybe someone gave it to her.”

“Why?”

“There's some people that
like
to give away money.”

“They do, eh? Well, I hope I meet one before I die.”

They had reached Granada Street. It was lined on both sides with cars parked for the night; garages were a luxury in this part of town.

Fielding remembered the house not by number, but by its bright pink paint. As he braked the car, he noticed a new blue and white Cadillac pulling away from the curb with an anxious shriek of rubber.

“I'll be back in two hours,” he told Juanita.

“You better be.”

“I give you my word.”

“I don't want your word. I want my car.”

“You'll have it. In two hours.”

He had no idea whether he'd be back in two hours, two days, or ever. It would all be a matter of luck.

18

I came here to see you, but I lack the courage. That is why I am writing, to feel in touch with you for a little, to remind myself that my death will be only partial; you will be left, you will be the proof that I ever lived at all. I leave nothing else. . . .

 

The blue and
white Cadillac was just as conspicuous on Opal Street as it had been on Granada, but there was no one around to notice. At the first drop of rain the sidewalks had emptied. Jim turned off the windshield wipers and the lights and waited in the cold darkness. Although he didn't look either at his watch or the clock on the dashboard, he knew it was five minutes to seven. During this week of crisis he seemed to carry around inside him his own clock, and he could hear the seconds ticking off with ominous accuracy. Time had become a living, breath­ing thing, attached to him as inexorably as a remora to a shark's belly, never sleeping or relaxing its grip, so that even when he awoke in the middle of the night, it would communicate to him the exact hour and minute.

Across the street the lights were on in Pinata's office, and a man's shadow was moving back and forth past the window. An overpowering hatred surged up Jim's body like a bore tide up a river, roiling his reason, muddying his perceptions. The hatred was divided equally between Pinata and Fielding—Pinata because he had dredged up the business about Carlos Camilla, Fielding because he had, in his impulsive, irresponsible manner, caused the events of the past week. It was his seemingly innocent phone call on Sunday night that had triggered Daisy's dream. If it hadn't been for the dream, Camilla would still be dead, Juanita forgot­ten, Mrs. Rosario unknown.

He had questioned Ada Fielding thoroughly about the phone call from Fielding, trying to make her remember exactly what she'd said that evening that might have disturbed Daisy and started the train of thought that led to the dream. “What did you say to her, Ada?” “I told her it was a wrong number.” “What else?” “I said it was some drunk. God knows that part of it was true enough.” “There must be something more.” “Well, I wanted to make it sound realistic, so I told her the drunk had called me baby. . . .”

Baby.
The mere word might have caused the dream and led to Daisy's recollection of the day she'd forced herself to forget, the day Jim had told her about Juanita's baby. So it was Fielding who had started it, that unpredictable man whose friendship could be more disastrous than his enmity. Questions without answers dan­gled in Jim's mind like kites without strings. What had brought Fielding to San Félice in the first place? What were his intentions? Where was he now? Was the girl still with him? Mrs. Rosario hadn't been able to answer any of these questions, but she'd an­swered another before it was asked: Fielding had seen the boy, Paul.

Jim watched the raindrops zigzagging across the windshield, and he thought of Daisy walking in the rain on Laurel Street try­ing to find her lost day as if it were something that was still there in the old house. Tears came into his eyes, of love, of pity, of help­lessness. He could no longer keep her safe and protect her from knowledge about her father that would cause her pain for the rest of her life. Yet he knew he must keep on trying, right to the end. “We can't let her find out now, Jim,” Ada Fielding had said, and he had replied, “It's inevitable.” “No, Jim, don't talk like that.” “You shouldn't have lied to her in the first place.” “I did it for her own good, Jim. If she'd had children, they might have been like him. It would have killed her.” “People don't die so easily.”

He realized now how true this was. He'd died a little more each day, each hour, of the past week, and there was still a long way to go.

He blinked away his tears and rubbed his eyes with his knuck­les as if he were punishing them for having seen too much, or too little, or too late. When he looked up again, Daisy was coming down the street, half running, her dark hair uncovered and her raincoat blowing open. She appeared excited and happy, like a child walking along the edge of a steep precipice, confident that there would be no landslide, no loose stones under her feet.

Carrying the landslide and the loose stones in his pockets, he got out of the car and crossed the road, head bowed against the wind.

“Daisy?”

She gave a little jump of fright, as if she were being accosted by a strange man. When she recognized him, she didn't say any­thing, but he could see the happiness and excitement drain out of her face. It was like watching someone bleed.

“Have you been following me, Jim?”

“No.”

“You're here.”

“Ada told me you had an appointment at—at his office.” He didn't want to say the name Pinata. It would have made the shadow moving behind the window too real. “Please come home with me, Daisy.”

“No.”

“If I have to plead with you, I will.”

“It won't do the slightest good.”

“I must make the attempt anyway, for your sake.”

She turned away with a skeptical little smile that was hardly more than a twist of the mouth. “How quick people are to do things for
my
sake, never their own.”

“Married people have a mutual welfare that can't be divided like a pair of towels marked His and Hers.”

“Then stop talking about
my
sake. If you mean for the sake of our marriage, say so. Though of course it doesn't sound quite so noble, does it?”

“Please don't be ironic,” he said heavily. “The issue is too important.”

“What is the issue?”

“You don't realize the kind of catastrophe you're bringing down on yourself.”

“But
you
realize?”

“Yes.”

“Then tell me.”

He was silent.

“Tell me, Jim.”

“I can't.”

“You see your own wife headed for a catastrophe, as you put it, and you can't even tell her what it is?”

“No.”

“Does it have anything to do with the man in my grave?”

“Don't talk like that,” he said harshly. “You have no grave. You're alive, healthy—”

“You aren't answering my question about Camilla.”

“I can't. Too many people are involved.”

She raised her eyebrows, half in surprise, half in irony. “It sounds as if there's been some giant plot going on behind my back.”

“It's been my duty to protect you. It still is.” He put his hand on her arm. “Come with me now, Daisy. We'll forget this past week, pretend it never happened.”

She stood silent in the noisy rain. It would have been easy, at that moment, to yield to the pressure of his hand, follow him across the street, letting him guide her back to safety. They would take up where they left off; it would be Monday morning again, with Jim reading aloud to her from the
Chronicle.
The days would pass quietly, and if they promised no excitement, they promised no catastrophe, either. It was the nights she feared, the return of the dream. She would climb back up the cliff from the sea and find the stranger under the stone cross, under the seamark tree.

“Come home with me now, Daisy, before it's too late.”

“It's already too late.”

He watched her disappear through the front door of the build­ing. Then he crossed the road and got into his car, without look­ing up at the shadow behind the lighted window.

The noise of the rain beating on the tile roof was so loud that Pinata didn't hear her step in the corridor or her knocking at the door of his office. It was after seven o'clock. He'd been chasing around after Juanita and Fielding for three hours until he'd reached the point where all the bars, and the people in them, looked alike. He was feeling tired and irritable, and when he looked up and saw Daisy standing in the doorway, he said brusquely, “You're late.”

He expected, in fact wanted, her to snap back at him and give him an excuse to express his anger.

She merely looked at him coolly. “Yes. I met Jim outside.”

“Jim?”

“My husband.” She sat down, brushing her wet hair back from her forehead with the back of her hand. “He wanted me to go home with him.”

“Why didn't you?”

“Because I found out some things this afternoon that indicate we've been on the right track.”

“What are they?”

“It won't be easy or pleasant for me to tell you, especially about the girl. But of course you have to know, so you can plan what to do next.” She blinked several times, but Pinata couldn't tell whether it was because the overhead lights were bothering her eyes or whether she was on the point of weeping. “There's some connection between the girl and Camilla. I'm pretty sure Jim knows what it is, although he wouldn't admit it.”

“Did you ask him?”

“Yes.”

“Did he indicate that he was acquainted with Camilla?”

“No, but I think he was.”

She told him then, in a detached voice, about the events of the afternoon: her discovery of the check stubs in Jim's desk, the call from Muriel about Fielding, her talk with Adam Burnett at the dock, and finally her meeting Jim. He listened carefully, his only comments being the tapping of his heels as he paced the floor.

He said, when she'd finished, “What was in the letter in the pink envelope that Muriel mentioned to you?”

“From the date I know it could have been only one thing—the news about Juanita and the child.”

“And that's what motivated his trip up here?”

“Yes.”

“Why four years after the fact?”

“Perhaps it wasn't possible for him to do anything about it at the time,” she said defensively. “I know he wanted to.”

“Do anything such as what?”

“Give me moral support, or sympathy, or let me talk it out with him. I think the fact that he didn't come when I needed him has been bothering him all these years. Then when he finally settled nearby, in Los Angeles, he decided to satisfy his conscience. Or his curiosity. I don't know which. It's hard to explain my father's actions, especially when he's been drinking.”

It's even harder to explain your husband's,
Pinata thought. He stopped pacing and leaned against the front of the desk, his hands in his pockets. “What do you make of your husband's insistence that he is ‘protecting' you, Mrs. Harker?”

“He appears to be sincere.”

“I don't doubt it. But why does he think you need protection?”

“To avoid a catastrophe, he said.”

“That's a pretty strong word. I wonder if he meant it literally.”

“I'm sure he did.”

“Did he indicate who, or what, would be the cause of this catastrophe?”

“Me,” Daisy said. “I'm bringing it down on my own head.”

“How?”

“By persisting in this investigation.”

“Suppose you don't persist?”

“If I go home like a good little girl and don't ask too many questions or overhear too much, presumably I will avoid catas­trophe and live happily ever after. Well, I'm not a good little girl anymore, and I no longer trust my husband or my mother to decide what's best for me.”

She had spoken very rapidly, as if she were afraid she might change her mind before the words were all out. He realized the pressure she was under to go home and resume her ordinary life, and while he admired her courage, he doubted the validity of the reasons behind it.
Go back, Daisy baby, to Rainbow's End and the pot of gold and the handsome prince. The real world is a rough place for thirty-year-old little girls in search of catastrophe.

“I know what you're thinking,” she said with a frown. “It's writ­ten all over your face.”

He could feel the blood rising up his neck into his ears and cheeks. “So you read faces, Mrs. Harker?”

“When they're as obvious as yours.”

“Don't be too sure. I might be a man of many masks.”

“Well, they're made of cellophane.”

“We're wasting time,” he said brusquely. “We'd better go over to Mrs. Rosario's house and clear up a few—”

“Why do you get so terribly embarrassed when I bring up any­thing in the least personal?”

He stared at her in silence for a moment. Then he said, with cold deliberation, “Lay off, Daisy baby.”

He had meant to shock her, but she seemed merely curious. “Why did you call me that?”

“It was just another way of saying, don't go looking for two catastrophes.”

“I don't understand what you mean.”

“No? Well”—he picked up his raincoat from the back of the swivel chair—”are you coming along?”

“Not until you explain to me what you meant.”