Once a Widow (3 page)

Richard awakened a little before nine, early for him, and after a breakfast of orange juice and coffee he lit a cigarette and telephoned the coast guard station. His conversation with the officer who answered went pretty much as he’d rehearsed it in his mind. As he talked, he crushed out the cigarette, which tasted like burning straw (how much gin had he taken aboard last night?). The officer listened sympathetically, asked questions and promised to alert all patrols. Richard thanked him, assured him that he’d be at home all day in case they had any news for him and that he’d call immediately if his wife returned. Richard hung up, smiling. Everything was under control, working according to his plan, very professional. Alex Kamin would approve.

But it was a long day for Richard. He couldn’t go down to the beach, for fear of not hearing the phone. He wandered around the house drinking bourbon straight from the bottle, but not too much. There was a chance they’d find Karen’s body or the boat, and he wanted to be alert. He thought constantly of Rose Ann, knowing that she would be half expecting him to meet her, in spite of what he’d told her on Friday afternoon. But it would be too risky; he was supposed to be a worried husband waiting at home for news of his missing wife.

At noon he made a ham and cheese sandwich on rye and poured a glass of milk. As he ate, he became aware of the darkening sky and the rising moan of the wind. He went to the kitchen window and gazed out over the lake. Whitecaps were breaking on the beach, and far across the rolling water, toward the Canadian reefs, the sky was an angry gray broken by vivid flashes of lightning. It began to rain and he hurried to close the windows and doors. Then he ran out to the drive and drove the Corvette into the garage beside Karen’s white Cadillac. Back in the house he stood for a moment, wiping rain from his face. In spite of the sound of the wind and the drumming of the rain on the windows and roof, the house seemed oddly silent, almost lonesome.

He stretched out on his bed, his head on his folded arms, and listened to the sounds of the storm. He felt safe here, secure, safer than he’d ever felt in his mother’s flat in Sacramento. For the first time in many years he thought of his mother, who had died when he was sixteen. He had never known his father. He’d been killed in a dock strike in ’Frisco before Richard had been born. He closed his eyes, trying to recall a childhood he’d never really known, and presently he slept.

The ringing of the phone awakened him. He sat up, waited a moment until his head had cleared, and then picked up the phone from the bedside table. “Hello,” he said.

“Mr. Barry?”

“Yes.”

“This is Lieutenant Prentice, at the coast guard station. I—uh—I’m afraid we have bad news for you.”

“What is it?” Richard asked sharply.

“We’ve found the boat, Mr. Barry—beached on the rocks near Catawba. She’s pretty well smashed up.”

“But my wife—what about her?”

“There was no one on board.”

Richard waited a suitable moment before he said hoarsely, “Where is she? What happened to her?”

“We don’t know. She may have fallen overboard, and you said she couldn’t swim…” Prentice coughed delicately.

“You mean she’s—drowned? How could that happen? She was always careful around boats, and near the water—especially careful, because she couldn’t swim. I can’t believe…”

“It may have happened during the squall we had around noon—we can’t tell how long the boat has been beached.” Prentice coughed again. “Try not to worry about it too much, Mr. Barry. We’ll let you know as soon as we have anything to tell you. What do you want done with the boat?”

“To hell with the boat. Just find my wife.”

“We’ll do our best.” Prentice paused, and then added, “If you like, we’ll see that the boat is moved to the station yard. You can come and look it over later.”

“All right, thanks, but you can understand how I feel.”

“Certainly. We’ll be in touch.” Prentice hung up.

It was a little after two in the afternoon. Richard went to the kitchen and as he drank a glass of cold water he gazed out of the window. The storm was over and the sun was shining on the gently rolling water. He could not sleep any more and he paced the house slowly, carrying a bottle of bourbon, smoking and taking an occasional nip. He felt fine, a little jittery, maybe, but it would soon be over. Even if he were suspected, there was no possible way anything could be proven. Around five o’clock he shaved and took another shower, mostly to pass the time, and changed into white linen slacks and a tight, dark-blue, short-sleeved polo shirt which accentuated his powerful shoulders and muscular tanned arms. He thought of calling the house in Cleveland again, but decided not to over-do it. Around seven he broiled a medium-sized sirloin from the freezer, heated some frozen French fried potatoes and made a pot of coffee. He had his dinner at the kitchen table from where he could see the terrace, the beach below and the undulating expanse of lake tinted red by the sinking sun. Far out on the horizon the smoke from an ore barge made a dark smudge against the evening sky. When he had finished eating he rinsed his few dishes, carried the coffee to the living room, lit a cigarette and sat down to wait.

They came at dusk, two of them, a young fresh-faced man and a tall older one wearing khaki, a silver shield, a broad-brimmed hat and a cartridge belt bearing a Colt .38 in a black leather holster. Richard opened the screen door and let them in. The young man said he was Lieutenant Prentice of the coast guard station and introduced the tall man as Harry Lambert, the sheriff of Island County. Richard shook hands with both, invited them to sit down. They sat, but politely declined Richard’s invitation to have a drink. Whisky, beer, coffee? Prentice spoke first. He regretted that Mrs. Barry had not been found, but urged Richard not to give up hope. The boat was a wreck; perhaps the motor and some fittings could be salvaged. He had brought Sheriff Lambert because there was a possibility that Mrs. Barry had been aboard the cruiser when it cracked up on the rocks and had gotten ashore. If so, she might—uh—be somewhere in the vicinity, perhaps injured. The sheriff’s men were conducting a search along the shore in the area. Would Mr. Barry mind if the sheriff asked a few questions?”

“Certainly not,” Richard said.

The sheriff cleared his throat. “You understand, Mr. Barry, that we’ll do everything we can to find your wife, and that the questions I’m going to ask are merely routine?”

Richard nodded in a grave cooperative manner. “I understand.”

“When did you last see your wife?”

“About two o’clock yesterday afternoon. She suggested a ride in the cruiser, but I didn’t feel too well—coming down with a cold, I guess.” Richard coughed against the back of one hand. “She asked if I’d mind if she went alone. I said I didn’t mind, but warned her to be careful.”

“Lieutenant Prentice tells me that she could not swim.”

“That’s correct, but I never worried when she was on the boat. She is quite expert in its operation, and often took it for cruises along the shore. Sometimes she’d put in at the docks of friends’ houses and visit a while, maybe have a few drinks—you know?”

Both the sheriff and Prentice exchanged glances and looked interested. The sheriff said, “I see, Mr. Barry. Had she been—uh—drinking when she left?”

“Not any more than usual,” Richard said lightly. “A few cocktails before lunch, perhaps one or two whisky highballs afterward.”

“Hmmm,” the sheriff said. “Would you say that she was intoxicated?”

Richard frowned and said slowly, “No—not really.”

“Were you drinking, too?”

“A little,” Richard admitted. “Two martinis before lunch, but nothing afterward.” He gazed at the sheriff with a puzzled expression. “What’s that got to do with it?”

The sheriff leaned forward and said kindly, “Mr. Barry, I don’t wish to alarm you unduly, but if your wife had been drinking—to excess, apparently—it’s quite possible that she lost her balance and fell overboard, especially during the storm we had today, and not being able to swim…” He spread his hands in a hopeless gesture.

“I doubt that,” Richard said. “She is thoroughly familiar with the boat, and would take precautions.” He paused, and added with faint grimness, “Of course, perhaps she drank too much at times, but she couldn’t have…” His voice broke and he brushed a hand over his eyes.

“We just want you to face the facts, Mr. Barry,” the sheriff said gently, “and not harbor any false hopes.” He hesitated, and when he spoke again his voice was sharp and no longer gentle. “Why did you wait until this morning before you reported her missing?”

Richard looked at him quickly. This yokel is smart, he thought, and I must not sell him short. He said evenly, “I told you she’d been out in the boat before, many times. I didn’t worry too much. When it got dark I turned on the light at the end of the dock for her, as I always do. Then I phoned our home in Cleveland, thinking that she might have taken it into her head to run there, but she hadn’t, and I decided that she was just cruising the lake in the moonlight as she had done before. I took some aspirin for my cold, and a sleeping pill, and went to bed. When I awoke this morning, and realized that she hadn’t returned, I became alarmed, of course, and called the coast guard.”

The sheriff nodded gravely. “You and Mrs. Barry got along well, I suppose? I mean, you didn’t maybe have a quarrel yesterday, before she left?”

Richard shook his head. “No, not at all. Oh, maybe we’ve had a few arguments, mostly about her—well, her drinking. But not yesterday. In fact, she was in very good spirits when she left.”

“High spirits?” the sheriff suggested.

Richard’s mind worked swiftly. He’d planted the drinking angle, but he must not lay it on too thick. He said bluntly, “She wasn’t drunk, if that’s what you mean.”

The sheriff nodded. “Were you at home all afternoon and evening?”

Richard looked at the sheriff once more. The hick bastard is really sticking his nose in, he thought. He’d have to cut him down a little. “Yes, I was,” he said.

“Can you prove it?”

“Yes, I can prove it,” Richard said slowly and distinctly, “but I don’t have to and I’m not going to. I’m a tax payer in this county. My wife is missing. I’m very worried and upset. Instead of asking me silly questions you should be out trying to find her. Why don’t you start doing what you’re getting paid to do?”

The sheriff flushed. Prentice, who had noticed the Cadillac and the Corvette in the garage, stood up and said heartily, “Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Barry. We’ll do our best.” He glanced sharply at the sheriff and added, “And so will the sheriff’s department, I’m sure.”

Lambert got to his feet and said to Richard, “I meant no offense. I hope we can find your wife. We will certainly try.”

“Thank you,” Richard said quietly. “I’m sorry I lost my temper.”

“It’s quite understandable, under the circumstances.” Lambert and Prentice moved to the door. Richard opened it for them and said, “Thanks for coming, gentlemen.”

“All part of our job,” Prentice said. “Good night, Mr. Barry.”

“Good night.”

When they were gone Richard carried the coffee pot and cup to the kitchen. Then he went to the terrace with the bourbon bottle and sat in the wind and drank just enough from time to time to maintain a mild glow. It helped, because he was restless and tired of being confined to the house. He wanted to leave, take the Corvette and just drive anywhere, but it wouldn’t be wise, not tonight. Tomorrow it would be all right for him to leave. Maybe then it would be even safe for him to see Rose Ann, if only for a short while. He sipped the whisky and thought of Rose Ann.

At eleven o’clock he went to bed. As he lay naked, smoking a final cigarette, he reached out and switched on the radio beside the bed. The tubes warmed and presently a man’s smooth, modulated voice filled the room.

…
And there is mystery in Harbor City this evening, a mystery involving an unidentified blond woman who was found unconscious on a small island in the lake this afternoon by a party of fishermen…

Richard jerked erect, turned up the radio’s volume and listened intently while a growing sick horror filled his brain.

…
She was taken to Memorial Hospital where she is reported to be recovering from exposure, fatigue and shock. However, she apparently cannot remember her identity or how she came to be on the island clad only in a bathing suit. She is described by hospital attendants as having light brown hair, cut short, gray eyes, about forty years old, with an abdominal scar resulting from an appendicitis operation. And now to the world of sports. This evening—

Richard snapped off the radio and in the sudden quiet he heard the wind rustling around the house. He took a cigarette from a package on the bedside table and lit it with hands that trembled only a little. He drew on the cigarette, frowning, and then crushed it out. He stood up and dressed quickly—gray flannel slacks, the dark blue polo shirt, a light gray tweed jacket. After pocketing keys and money he turned out the light and left the house by the front door, locking it behind him. The garage door was open and in the moonlight he saw the two cars there, Karen’s white Cadillac and the yellow Corvette. He unlocked the trunk of the Cadillac, took out a flat, heavy crescent wrench, slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket, closed and locked the trunk. Then he stood a moment, gazing at the two cars. Abruptly he got into the Corvette and started the motor. He would have preferred a less conspicuous vehicle for his mission, but he did not have much choice.

He drove the sixteen miles into Harbor City at a steady fifty miles an hour and was careful to obey all traffic signs, lights and warnings. On the edge of the city he stopped at an all-night gas station to ask for directions to Memorial Hospital. He reached the hospital a little after eleven-thirty, parked a block down the street in the shadow of a maple tree and walked back. A wide cement walk bordered by a thick hedge led from the street to the front entrance of the long low building. Richard approached the building at a normal gait, annoyed at the sagging weight of the wrench in his jacket pocket. He liked his clothes to fit neatly. He reached twin glass doors and peered through them. Inside the entrance were three marble steps leading up to a dimly lit corridor. He saw a woman working at a desk in a small glass-enclosed office.