Do Evil In Return (16 page)

“Very little.”

“I just wondered. It seemed to me that this policeman behaved very oddly. He went up to Lewis study and I heard him typing. Isn’t that odd? Why would he want to use Lewis’ typewriter?”

“I don’t know,” Charlotte said. But he had a reason, he always has a reason.

“Then when he came downstairs again he asked me all kinds of funny questions.”

“Funny?”

“I thought they were. He asked about any trips that Lewis and I have taken since Christmas. Well, of course, I don’t take trips. There’s my heart, for one thing, and for another, I love my little home. I’m happy here. I don’t need the excitement that Lewis seems to crave… I told the policeman that. He said he wanted to know about the little trips and holidays that Lewis took because Lewis might have gone to one of the same places again. People repeat themselves, he said.” She twisted a strand of her fair hair with thin, nervous fingers. “I didn’t tell him that Lewis choked me. I have my pride.”

There was a long silence. Charlotte thought of Easter, prowling around Lewis’ study, his eyes sharpened by hate… Easter, waiting for her at home, perhaps wandering out to the kitchen and from there seeing the light in the garage.

“If I knew where he is,” Gwen said, “I could sleep, I could stop worrying like this. But he’s been acting so strange nearly all week. The last dinner we had together two nights ago he hardly spoke at all. I was trying to make conversation so that Mrs. Peters wouldn’t suspect anything was wrong—she’s the cook and she loves to gossip. Well, I’d just read in the paper about that girl who drowned herself and I mentioned it to Lewis because I thought he’d be interested, but he told me to shut up, right in front of Mrs. Peters… That was a terrible thing, about the girl.”

“Yes.”

“I wonder, did she—suffer?”

“She must have.”

“But it was quick, wasn’t it? Of course. It must have been. Very quick. Oh, I hate to see things suffer. I could never be a doctor, like you. But I guess doctors get used to seeing suffering and death.”

“In a sense.”

“I never could. I’m too sensitive.” Her lower lip began to tremble. “At least the girl is dead. She’s out of things now. She has no more troubles. Oh, I’m so tired. So awfully
tired.”

“I’ll give you a sleeping capsule.”

Gwen’s eyes widened in quick panic. “No. No, I won’t take anything. I must be alert, in case he comes back, in case he tries…”

“There’s little danger of that. But I could call Mrs. Peters and ask her to stay with you for tonight.”

“No. She has her own family, her own worries. Doctor—Dr. Keating, what would you do if you were in my place?”

“I don’t know. Go to a hotel, perhaps.”

“But the dogs. There’s no one to look after them.”

“I can’t advise you anyway,” Charlotte said slowly. “Personal problems can’t always be worked out by objective reasoning. What I would do might be the opposite of what would be good for you to do.”

“That’s right, isn’t it? My, you’re so sensible and intelligent! I wish you knew my husband better. He likes intelligent women, maybe because I’m so stupid.” One corner of her mouth curved in a sad little smile. “I wish I had everything under control in my private life, the way you must have. I bet you have no problems at all.”

For Charlotte, it was the final irony. She looked at the French doll on the window seat. Its painted smile was knowing.

Easter was waiting for her. There was no need to ask him if he had found Voss and Eddie: The garage was dark.

He looked at her across the room. All the lamps were still burning and every line and angle of his face was distinct, grim.

“You’ve got a bad case of trouble, Charlotte.”

In silence she went to the big window where Lewis’ chair was, and stared down at the lights of the city. It was only five nights ago that she’d stood in this same place and wondered which of the city lights belonged to Violet. She had told Lewis about Violet that night, she’d said, “
Lewis
,
I think I made a mistake
.”

Well, the mistake had grown, cancerously; its wild, malignant cells had spread from life to life until it covered them all, Violet and Eddie, Voss and his wife and the old man Tiddles; Easter and Lewis and Gwen and Mrs. Reyerling. Her mistake had infected each of them, but its final victim was herself, Charlotte Keating.

She said, without turning, “Have you reported it?”

“Not yet.”

“You will, though.”

“I have to.”

“I suppose you know it will mean the end of my life here, my work.”

“Yes.”

She closed her eyes. The lids felt dry and dusty. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? I meant only to help Violet when I drove down to Olive Street that night. My duty seemed so clear, so inescapable. I didn’t
want
to go to that house. I was afraid of it. I remember thinking so many things had happened there that one more wouldn’t even be noticed. I was wrong. I’ve done quite a few wrong things, I suppose; pushed the wrong buttons, knocked on the wrong doors.”

“You still have a chance,” Easter said, “if you can find Ballard.”

“Do you hate him so much you must try to drag him into this?”

“He’s not big enough to hate. And he’s getting smaller by the minute.”

“You talk so oddly.”

“It will make sense if you’ll listen. Or don’t you want to listen?”

“I’m not sure. I’m—mixed up. All these hints about Lewis…”

“I’ve tried to let you down easy, Charlotte. You wouldn’t come down. You were treading clouds, still are. When a cloud gets too heavy, it rains. Stormy weather.”

“Talk straight, please.”

“Trying to,” Easter said. “Ballard didn’t tell you he knew Violet?”

“He didn’t know her.”

“He did. He sent her to you.”

“No! I won’t believe it!”

“You must. It’s true. The child was his. He sent her to you knowing how you felt about people in a jam, hoping you’d help Violet get rid of the child, help Violet and save his skin at the same time.”

“No.” The feeble denial stuck in her throat. “He told me—the night I met him on the breakwater—he said he didn’t even know Violet. I believed him. He was telling the truth, I’m sure of it.”

“He may have been telling the truth, as far as he knew it. Maybe he didn’t remember the girl; maybe he never even knew her name, until he saw her picture in the paper the next day, her picture and the name of the little town she came from. He knew then.”

There was a long silence, broken only by the ticking of the dock on the mantel, the passing of the restless minutes.

“I’m not guessing,” Easter said. “I know he sent Violet to you because your name and address on the card found in your purse were written on the typewriter in Ballard’s study.”

“You’re framing him. You’re manufacturing evidence against him.”

“I don’t operate like that,” he said flatly, “even for the love of a lady. Want more proof?”

“No.”

“You could use it.” He took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and opened it for her to see. It was a photostatic copy of a sheet from the register of the Rose Court Motel, Ashley, Oregon, C. Vincent Rawls, Owner and Manager. Date, Feb. 26/49. Name, L. B. Ballard. Address, 480 Corona del Mar, Salinda, California. Make of car, Cadillac, License, California 17Y205.

She couldn’t take her eyes off the name on the photostat. It had been written very carelessly and quickly, and she wasn’t sure whether the writing was Lewis’ or not. She said, “It doesn’t look exactly like Lewis’ writing.”

“It is.”

“And it proves nothing except that he stopped at Ashley for a night.”

“On February twenty-sixth.”

She didn’t reply, though she knew the significance of the date. It was the beginning of July now, and Violet had been four months gone with child when she died. But how could it have happened? Lewis wasn’t like that at all, Charlotte thought. He would never have looked at Violet—she was young enough to be his daughter, young and ignorant and not even pretty; and Lewis was a respectable man, a little stolid, a man who valued his place in the community and his reputation. Lewis and Violet. The thought made her sick. It stuck in her throat; it couldn’t be swallowed; it couldn’t be coughed up. Lewis and Violet. And the baby boy that had died with Violet was Lewis’ child; it might even have grown to look like him—the son that he’d always wanted, now in a garbage can in the morgue or already burned to dust in an incinerator. Poor Lewis, she thought. But running through her pity was an iron stripe of bitterness.

Easter was watching her, narrow-eyed. “I’m not interested in bringing Ballard to trial on moral grounds. That’s woman’s work. What he does with his spare weekends in Ashley or Cucamonga is no business of mine.”

“You’ve managed to make it your business. Do you also break into locked hotel rooms and peer over transoms and creep under…”

“I’m after a murderer,” Easter said. “Not a four-bit Romeo.”

She leaned her forehead against the window to steady herself. The lights of the city whirled, slowed, stopped. “Lewis is neither,” she said at last.

“He’s both.”

“No you have no proof.”

“I can’t prove that he killed Violet. But he’s made it easier for me by shooting Voss and O’Gorman and leaving the bodies in your garage.”

She turned to face him. “He wouldn’t do such a thing. Even if he were desperate, he wouldn’t involve me in such a mess. He loves me. You can laugh at that, but it’s true. He loves me.”

“He loves himself, too, and that’s the big passion. You’re running a poor second, Charlotte.”

She repeated stubbornly, “He would never do such a thing.”

“I admit it’s a pretty stupid idea to drive a convertible containing two bodies into your girlfriend’s garage. But I figure that he didn’t expect you back for a few days, and he intended to use the time to think himself out of the jam. When you look at it like that, Ballard was playing it smart. Your garage was practically the one safe place in town where he could hide the bodies until he planned a way to dispose of them.”

Lewis and Violet. Lewis and Voss. Lewis and Eddie. Three deaths already, and Easter with death in his eyes.

Easters mouth moved with a question, but she hadn’t heard it.

“I repeat,” Easter said. “Ballard had a key to your garage?”

“I don’t see what difference it…”

“But he had a key?”

“I left the door open.”

“Did he have a key?”

“Yes!”

Both their voices were raised, but Easter’s had lowered in pitch, and Charlotte’s was high and shrill.

“Do I have to squeeze everything out of you?” Easter said. “Don’t you know I’m trying to help you?”

“I don’t want your kind of help.”

“You can’t be choosey at this stage of the game. You’d better take all the help you can get while you can get it. You’ve got a car with two very dead men out in your garage, and I have to report it. I have to report it to the chief, to the D.A., to the sheriff. I should have reported it half an hour ago, but I gave you a chance. Where’s Ballard?”

“I don’t know.”

“And even if you knew…?”

“I wouldn’t tell you.”

“The loyal-little-woman role, eh?” An ugly smile crossed his face. “Well, come on, loyal little woman, I have something to show you.”

“I don’t have to…”

“Come on. I want to see that loyalty explode right in your two blind eyes.”

She felt a surge of violence. She wanted to reach out and hit him. It was the first time since childhood that she had wanted to strike someone, to hurt “You’re—you’re a contemptible…”

“Bully,” he said. “Gad. Yeah, I know all that.”

“My—my loyalty isn’t as absurd as you seem to think it is. There’s no proof that Lewis is guilty of anything.”

“Not enough for a court of law. It might take a month, two months, to line up the witnesses and the ballistics and medical experts and to organize the evidence. But right now I’m convinced, as the judge puts it in his instructions to the jury, I’m convinced beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty, that Ballard killed all three of them, Violet, O’Gorman and Voss.”

Beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty.
Heavy, somber words, like a funeral sermon.

Easter glanced at his watch before he opened the front door. “You haven’t much time. Coming?”

“Where are you going?”

“Just to the garage.”

“I don’t want to.

“Afraid you’ll be convinced?”

“No.”

“Come on, Charlotte.”

“No.”

Easter made an impatient gesture. “If I have to convince you that Ballard is a murderer before you’ll do anything to help yourself out of this mess, you must come out to the garage and see for yourself.”

“See what?”

“The gun.”

“Gun?”

“You’re in a worse spot than you think you are, Charlotte. The evidence indicates that the shooting was done in the convertible, perhaps right in your garage.” He paused. “Coming?”

“Yes.” She wanted to see the gun. She even had a sudden hope that she would be able to say definitely that it didn’t belong to Lewis. Lewis had a target pistol, a pair of them, in fact. She remembered the day she’d first seen them. She thought back to the time when she and Lewis were having a picnic on a remote stretch of beach near Pismo, and Lewis was trying to explain to her the difference between a revolver and an automatic pistol.

“These are revolvers. Now an automatic works differently. The cartridges are loaded into a clip that fits into the handle and the recoil mechanism discharges the empty shell and throws a new cartridge into the chamber. But a revolver like this has a revolving cylinder which—you haven’t even been listening, Charley.”

“I have so.”

“All right, what is this in my hand?”

“It’s a .38 caliber Colt target pistol. Darling, the sun’s making me sleepy. Anyway, what is a caliber?”

“You actually don’t know what a caliber is?”

“I actually don’t.”

“You are an amazingly ignorant but lovable woman,” Lewis said solemnly. He had leaned over to kiss her, one of the pistols still in his hand.

It had been a happy day. She thought of it now as she followed Easter silently out to the garage. The beach, the sun, the happiness, were as remote as a dream.