Contrary Pleasure (34 page)

“Get her out of here and phone
Endermann
,” Ben
said. He had directed the request at Brock, planning to get David out himself.
But to his astonishment, David moved toward his mother and put a long awkward
arm around her shoulders and said, “Come. Come… on,” guiding her toward the
door and giving Ben a look in which there was defiance and even a certain
pride. She went willingly with her son.

“You phone,” he said to Brock. And Brock went to the desk and picked up
the phone book as Ben, starting to turn toward Quinn, heard Wilma in the house,
calling him. Heard Ellen’s softer voice.

He went out into the hallway and they came toward him, eyes wide with
identical concern so that they looked more alike than at any other time in his
memory. “Don’t come in,” he said bluntly. “Quinn killed himself. Go take care
of Bess, Wilma. You go tell George, Ellen.”

“Oh, dear God,” Wilma whispered. “Oh, dear God.”

Ellen’s face turned to chalk and she turned and ran.

“Dr.
Endermann
. Just a moment, sir.”

He took the phone from Brock and saw Brock look toward the body and look
away quickly. “Ralph? This is Ben. Trouble up here. Yes. No… not an emergency.
Quinn… shot himself. Dead. Yes. I don’t know. Bess is pretty—Yes, of course.
Thanks a lot. You’ll phone them then.”

He hung up, turned with reluctance toward the body, feeling the sick
weight of guilt. “Dad,” Brock said, “there’s notes there. One to you.”

Ben tore his note open with a hand that trembled. The incredible words
blurred and then came clear. And he felt the lifting of that oppressive weight,
but immediately felt shamed within himself that he could feel a lessening of
sadness merely by learning that the cause of suicide had been other than what
he had so grimly suspected. He folded the note quickly into his pocket, picked up
the other one, saw that it was sealed, tapped it on the back of his hand for a
moment, then opened it, avoiding Brock’s eyes. The other note made no mention
of the girl.

“Do you think she saw the notes, Dad?”

“I don’t think so.” He knew what his son was thinking and liked him for
thinking it. “Cleaning the gun?” He went over to the body, forced himself to
look at it, looking for the wound, saw the blackened pit of the ear. “I’m
afraid that would be pretty difficult, son.”

“Look, Dad. Up there. That hole.”

“There’s another one in the paneling. At least three shots. No, we can’t
make it work at all. I’ll leave the note to her on the desk.”

“What about the note to you?”

He looked at his son. “There wasn’t any other note.”

Brock looked startled and then nodded. “Okay.”

They could hear, in the distances of the house, a woman crying. George
came walking somberly into the room. He stood and looked at the body, his face
unchanging. Ben handed him the note. He read it slowly, handed it back.

“Hell!” he said. It was a sound of protest, of indignation, and also of
disgust.

“Anything I can do, Ben?”

“They won’t want him touched. Let’s… get out of here.” They went to the
doorway. Ben was the last one out. He pulled the study door shut. “George,
Endermann
is coming. He’ll give Bess a pill or a shot or
something. He’ll phone the sheriff’s office and I guess they get hold of the
coroner. There’ll be an inquest, but it will be routine. I’ll get hold of
Durr
and
Commings
. They can pick
him… it up after the officials are through.”

George scuffed one foot, said meaningfully, “Any chance of—”

“Not a chance. He missed twice, at least. Then took it in the ear.”

George’s face darkened. “Isn’t that just like him! Wouldn’t he crumb it
up so there’s no chance at all. That son of a bitch never drew a single
unselfish breath the longest day… Hell, I’m sorry, Ben. I’m sorry I said that.”

“It’s okay. How about Alice?”

“Your girl was smart. She got me alone. I got to go back and tell her.”

“It’s going to hit her hard, George. Being a twin. Want me to come along?
Or I could tell her myself.”

George sighed. “Thanks. No. I’ll do it. It has to be done. I’ll do it.
I’ll stay with her. Tell Ralph to stop over after he gets through with Bess,
will you?”

George walked away, head bent. Ben said to Brock, “I’ve got to make that
call. Do you think you could go over and tell Robbie and Susan? I mean quietly,
without a lot of—”

“Dad!”

“I’m sorry, boy.” His smile was tired. “Go ahead now.” Brock started away
and Ben called him back. “As soon as the routine is over with, I have to go
into town. I’m not going to tell your mother in advance. After I get away, you
tell her I told you I had to check something at the plant, something plausible,
connected with this… mess.”

“I’ll do that.”

Brock walked down to the second house and tapped at the private entrance
to the guest annex.

“Who is it?” Susan called, her voice cheerful.

“Me. Brock.”

“Just a minute, huh?”

He waited and soon she opened the door. She wore a blue robe and her hair
was tied back. She smiled at him. “Come on in, Brock. I had to get some
lipstick on. Robbie’s wallowing around in the shower. Making mooing sounds. He
thinks he’s an operatic baritone. Listen to him!”

Brock made himself smile. His mouth felt unused to smiling. “Sit down,
Brock. The place is a mess. We’ve been dreadfully lazy this morning.”

“I guess you were tired from the trip and all.”

“What’s wrong, Brock? What is it?”

“I… I better wait until I can tell Robbie too, Susan.”

She gave him an intent look and then went to the bathroom door and
knocked. “Robbie! Please hurry.”

“Okay, okay,” he called. In a few moments the sound of the water stopped.

“Brock is here,” she called. “Come right out.”

He came out quickly, belting his robe, dark hair damp, bare feet making
marks on the rug, yellow towel over his shoulder. He looked curiously at their
still faces. “Hi, Brock boy. What goes?”

Brock had the feeling his voice was going to break. He made it deeper and
kept it firm. “It’s Quinn. He… he shot himself this morning. He’s dead. He… did
it on purpose.”

Susan made a small sound and put the back of her hand to her mouth.

Robbie looked as if he was trying to smile, as if he didn’t quite get the
joke. And then his face changed and he sat down. “Why in the wide world would
he—”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know,” Brock said.

“What a mess!” Robbie said. “What a damn stinking mess!”

“How is Bess?” Susan asked.

“She was in pretty bad shape. Mother and Ellen are with her. The doctor
is coming.”

“How is Alice?” she asked.

“I don’t know. George is telling her, I guess.”

Susan bit her lip and then walked swiftly to the connecting door and
opened it. “I’ll see what I can do for Alice,” she said, and pulled the door
shut behind her.

“I can’t believe it,” Robbie said.

“It’s true all right. I saw him. I mean I didn’t see him do it. I…” He
swallowed hard.

It was nearly
three o’clock before Ben was able to get away.
Endermann
had knocked out both Bess and Alice with heavy sedatives. The sheriff himself
had come, a tall wide man named Harley with blunt eyes and a small, skeptical,
puckered mouth. After the coroner was through, the slack thing that had been
Quinn Delevan was wrapped in coarse cloth and strapped in a wire basket and
carried out to the waiting vehicle by the employees of
Durr
and
Commings
.

Harley sat in Ben’s kitchen, accepted a cigar. “Now, why’d he do it? The
note doesn’t say anything about why.”

“I really don’t know why, Sheriff.”

“Health, money, or love. Those are the reasons. Take your choice.”

“I really don’t know.”

“I’ll tell you something, Mr. Delevan. You better know. Because the
papers are going to be on your neck and you’ve got to have some kind of a
statement to make, and it has got to satisfy them or they’ll build it into some
kind of big mystery, so as to help ’
em
sell their
papers. If there’s a reason they’ll buy, they’re usually pretty decent about a
thing like this. But you tell them what you’re telling me and you’ll get yourself
some page one stuff about mystery surrounding suicide of prominent businessman
sort of thing.”

Ben knew he was right. And he was highly conscious of the folded note in
his pocket. Bess, in her life, had had enough of violence. Enough of shame.

He leaned toward Harley and made his voice confidential. “I’ll have to
pledge you to secrecy, Sheriff. In order to give you the facts.”

“I can’t promise anything. You know that.”

“I’ll tell you. I guess I have to. But if the news gets out it might make
things financially embarrassing. You see, the firm hasn’t been doing too well.
Last Thursday we had an offer of a merger. It would be advantageous to the
stockholders. But the executive staff would be out, of course. I talked it over
with my brother. That was Thursday. I guess I indicated to him that I look
favorably on the merger. I didn’t realize it might hit him so hard. He hasn’t
any savings to speak of. And he’s a comparatively… he was a comparatively young
man. And the family firm… well, it meant a lot to him. Maybe more than it does
to me. You know. Tradition. He acted strange and depressed ever since I told
him. Everybody noticed it. He took off last night, right during a sort of
family party. He got drunk and drove away. He got into trouble down in Stockton.
The police picked him up. He was booked and I bailed him out and he was
supposed to stand trial Monday. I’m not saying he’d kill himself over a little
thing like that. But he never did that sort of thing before. But you can
understand why… for business reasons, I don’t want this to get out. Why, he
never came to work on Friday or Saturday morning. I think it was because we
are… to his way of thinking, losing the mill.”

Ben leaned back and watched Harley’s face intently. The big features
slackened. “That would seem to fit. Depression. Toomey is hanging around out
there. Good man.
Journal-Times.
I’ll get him. You sit still. Let me do
the talking.”

Toomey was a little, slow-moving man. He looked to be on the verge of
yawning. But his eyes had a terrier alertness.

“Sit down,
Rog
,” Harley said. “You know Mr.
Benjamin Delevan.”

“Seen him around. What’s the score?”

“Quinn Delevan, the fellow killed himself, did it on account of business
worries. Financial reverses, you might say. Been depressed now since Thursday
last. These people are having a hard enough time,
Rog
.
Think you can keep the other boys off their neck?”

“Nothing worth holding an exclusive on here. Sure, Sheriff. I’ll spread
it around. Now if you can fill me in on the obit, Mr. Delevan.”

Harley got up to go and Ben thanked him and then gave the bored little
man with eyes that were no longer alert the information he wanted. As Toomey
left he said, “I’ll phone it around.
Nobody’ll
bother
you.”

“Thanks,” Ben said. And he had the sour knowledge that when the sheriff
and the reporter learned what he had in his pocket, they would be merciless. He
saw no chance of keeping it quiet. Maybe one chance in five thousand. But worth
taking for Bess’s sake. For the sake of the living.

He drove toward Stockton, full of apprehension and impatience. He found
himself driving too fast, and then too slow. There was a Sunday afternoon
sleepiness in the city. He cruised slowly down Fremont and spotted the number
and parked. The old house looked quiet, dingy, drowsy. No official excitement.
So either the excitement was over, or the body had not yet been found. He
looked around warily, sensing that had the body been found, the vacant-minded
curious would be standing and looking at the house, as though the sight of it
would satisfy some strange craving, establish some twisted identification.
Thus, were it as yet unfound, there might be some chance of removing any
evidence of Quinn’s visit. And without too much danger to himself, as the time
of death once established would rule him out.

He heard the ringing of the doorbell, deep in the dusty house. A woman
waddled heavily to the door, with a piece of the Sunday paper in her hand. “You
want something?”

“I’m looking for a Miss Doyle.”

“You go around that side a the house. The door on the side. I don’t know
if she’s in or not. I don’t keep track a her. I got enough to do.”

“Thank you. Thank you very much.”

“Doan mention.”

He walked around the house. He raised his hand and hesitated, then
knocked on the door. He could not see through the curtained windows. He knocked
again and waited. The city sounds were sleepy. Children whined at play. “It is
not yours—It is so—It is not—It is so.”

He took a deep breath and reached for the knob. Just as he touched it the
door opened inward and stopped with a clink of the night chain. No one stood in
the crack of the door. “What do you want? Who is it?” Girl voice, mumbled,
distant.

“Are you Bonita Doyle?”

“Yes.” His heart seemed to jump upward, land safely in a higher place in
his chest. “Who are you?”

“Quinn’s brother.”

There was a long silence. “Just a minute.”

The door closed and he heard the chain rattle. It swung wide. “Come in.”

He went in, closed the door behind him. Her face was shocking. Her left
eye was puffed shut, hard, shiny skin, eggplant color, shading off to the
misshapen cheek. Fat broken lips protruding, too swollen to close across the
teeth. Clumsy bandage along the line of the jaw. He could tell that she was
young, that she might have been pretty. But nothing else. Facial tissue was too
bloated to show expression. She moved oddly, as though her neck was stiff. She
sat down with her hands in her lap and looked at him from the single
expressionless eye.