Where Love Has Gone (1962)

by Robbins, Harold

  “Take your time, Miss Hayden.”

  Nora took another sip of water and began to speak again. Her voice was strained and weak but could still be heard. “Dani was screaming and the butler came into the studio. I told him to call the doctor while I notified the police. Then I went to Mr. Riccio and tried to make him comfortable.” The tears came to her eyes again. “But there was nothing I could do. There was nothing anyone could do. I know that Dani didn’t mean to hurt him. It was an accident. Dani wouldn’t harm a fly.”

  She was silent for a moment and you could see her fighting for self-control; then she raised her head and looked directly at the jury. “I suppose it was all my fault,” she said bravely. “I should have been a better mother. But then, I suppose, every mother says that to herself.”

  That really put the icing on the cake. There were five women on the jury and they were all crying along with her.

  Nora turned and looked at the coroner. “I—I’m afraid that’s all I have to say.”

  He cleared his throat. “Have you any questions, Mr. Carter?’

  Mr. Carter got to his feet. “Miss Hayden, you told us that you had the butler call the doctor while you notified the police, then you went to the aid of Mr. Riccio, is that right?”

  Nora nodded. “Yes.”

  “Yet when Inspector Myrer arrived, Mr. Gordon, your attorney, was already there. When did you call him?”

  “After I called the police, I believe. I really can’t say. I was so upset that I don’t remember exactly.”

  I wondered if Carter realized that Nora was lying. If I knew Nora I was sure that she wasn’t aware of it. Apparently Carter decided to let it go.

  “What was your relationship with Mr. Riccio?”

  “He was my business manager,” Nora answered.

  “But he lived in your house, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that customary in your profession?”

  “I don’t know,” Nora answered. “But in my case it was a necessity. It was more than a full-time job.”

  “By that do you mean that you and Mr. Riccio had a much more personal relationship than merely business, Miss Hayden?”

  Gordon was on his feet. “Objection! The question is irrelevant and immaterial to the purpose of this inquest.”

  “Sustained.”

  “Were you and Mr. Riccio planning marriage at any time?” the assistant district attorney asked.

  “Objection! I respectfully ask the court to direct the assistant district attorney to confine himself to questions relevant to the purposes of this investigation.”

  “Sustained,” the coroner said. His voice was annoyed as he spoke to Carter. “You will so confine your questions.”

  Carter looked at Nora. “Did you see your daughter pick up the chisel with which she allegedly struck Mr. Riccio?”

  “I did not.”

  “Did you see it in her hand when she struck him?”

  “I did not.”

  “Did you know that such a chisel was lying on the table near the door?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Did you ordinarily leave that chisel there? Surely you must have realized that so sharp an instrument could be potentially dangerous?”

  “I left the chisel wherever I happened to be working with it. In this case it was on that table because I had been working on a rosewood figurine there.” She spoke in a firm voice now. “It was my studio. In addition to that chisel there are many other tools of my trade, including an acetylene blowtorch. I am a sculptress and I am interested only in what I create, not in keeping track of my tools. I have never considered any of my tools to be a potential danger. They are the foundation of my art.”

  “No further questions,” Carter said and sat down.

  Nora came down from the stand with her head still high. Her art was her shield and she had raised it in front of her so that nothing in the world could touch her. She was safe and secure behind it.

  There was only one more witness—Charles. His testimony merely confirmed everything that had been said before, which I surmised was why Violet was not called. The coroner then turned the case over to the jury.

  They were out for less than five minutes. The foreman delivered the verdict. “It is the finding of this jury that the deceased, Anthony Riccio, met his death as the result of a blow delivered by a sharp instrument in the hands of one Danielle Nora Carey, a minor, in justifiable defense of her mother.”

  There was a buzz in the courtroom and I turned to see the reporters scampering out as the coroner rapped his gavel. I stepped aside and let Nora and Gordon precede me up the aisle. They went out the door and I saw the flashes of the cameras. I decided to wait until the photographers had gone and sat down again.

  The courtroom was almost empty now. I looked across the aisle. A young woman was sitting there, making notes in a small book. She closed it and looked up at me and nodded. I nodded back automatically before I recognized her. The probation officer.

  I got up. “How do you do, Miss Spicer?”

  “Colonel Carey,” she answered quietly.

  “Did you see Dani this morning?”

  She nodded.

  “How is she?”

  “She still feels a little lost. But she’ll be all right when she gets used to it.” She got to her feet. “I must be going now.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  I stepped aside and watched her hurry up the aisle. Dani will get used to it, she said. As if that were a good thing. To get used to being in prison.

  The corridors were empty as I walked toward the exit. The bright sunlight was in my eyes and I didn’t see Harris Gordon until he was directly in front of me. “Well, Colonel Carey. What do you think?”

  I squinted at him. “Whether it was a trial or not, they managed to do a pretty good job of hanging Dani.”

  “Justifiable homicide is a long way from murder one,” he said, falling into step beside me.

  “Yeah,” I answered dryly. “We can be thankful for small favors.”

  “There’s one thing that wasn’t said in there that I think you ought to know.”

  I looked at him. “What’s that?”

  “What Dani said after she signed that statement at police headquarters.”

  “Why did you let her make a statement?”

  “I had no choice, she insisted on it. Then when I didn’t want her to sign it, she insisted on that too.”

  I was silent for a moment. “What did she say?”

  He looked at me. “‘Do they take me to the gas chamber now?’ Then she began to cry. I told her that they wouldn’t but she didn’t believe me. The more I assured her, the more hysterical she became. I called Dr. Bonner from there and he came down and gave her a shot. He went out to Juvenile Hall with us, but even that didn’t work. Dani was more hysterical than ever. That was the main reason they gave me custody of her for the night. She was still hysterical until her grandmother thought of telling her the one thing that finally quieted her down?”

  “What was that?”

  “That you were coming,” he said. “That you wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”

  PARTFOUR

  The Part of the Book

  About DANI

  _______________________________________________

  1

  __________________________________________

  When Dani had been very young and did not want to stay in the dark, she would look up at me from her bed and say in her tiny little voice, “Daddy, turn the night out.” And I would snap on a small light in her room and she would close her eyes and go to sleep, safe and secure in a familiar world.

  I wished it were as easy as that now. But there was no turning on a light to turn out the night anymore. The coroner’s jury had made sure of that.

  I watched Gordon get into his car and drive away. I turned and stared up at the courthouse for a moment, then walked over toward the parking lot on Golden Gate Avenue where I had left my car.


  The old nursery rhyme kept running through my head: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

  For the first time I knew how the king’s men must have felt when they couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again. Like fools. They shouldn’t have let him fall off in the first place. I shouldn’t have let Dani fall either.

  Maybe it was my fault. I remembered sitting in her little room out at Juvenile Hall yesterday afternoon and trying to explain to her why I could not come to see her. I remembered too how it sounded. Even if it were the truth, and I knew it was, I found it hard to believe.

  And Dani was still a child despite the cigarette she smoked so expertly. What did she believe? I couldn’t tell. But I could tell that she wanted to believe me, that she wanted to trust me. Still she wasn’t quite sure that she should. I had gone away before and I could go away again.

  It wasn’t said like that. Not in so many words. But it was there just the same—lying under the surface of her thoughts, her actions. She was too old to say it aloud and too young to hide it from me. There were so many things we had to tell each other, so many things to relearn about each other, and there just wasn’t enough time.

  The unspoken words clung to us like an invisible cloud when it came time to say goodbye. “I’ll come to see you tomorrow.”

  “No,” she said. “They don’t allow visitors during the week. But I’ll see you Tuesday. Miss Spicer told me that there would be a hearing.”

  “I know.”

  “Mother will be there?”

  I nodded. “So will your grandmother.” I bent down and kissed her. “You be a good girl and don’t worry about anything, kitten.”

  Her arms went up around my neck suddenly. She pressed her face to my cheek tightly. “I’m not afraid of anything now, Daddy,” she whispered fiercely. “Now that you’re home again.”

  It wasn’t until I was outside in the daylight that I realized what she had meant. But I hadn’t come home to stay. It was only for a visit.

  It was four o’clock when I got back to my motel. The red message light was blinking on and off. I picked up the telephone. The red light would have gone right on blinking until I called the operator. I gave her my name and room number.

  “Mrs. Hayden called. It is very important that you call her back the minute you get in.”

  “Thank you.” I pressed down the receiver for a moment, then dialed the number the operator had given me. A maid answered and the old lady came right to the phone.

  “Are you alone?” she asked in a guarded voice.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s very important that I see you.”

  “What about?”

  “I don’t want to talk on the telephone,” she said. “But believe me, Luke, it is very important or I wouldn’t call you.” A strained kind of note came into her voice. “Can you come for dinner? I’ll make certain that we’re alone.”

  “What time?”

  “Seven o’clock?”

  “Fine. I’ll be there.”

  “Thank you, Luke.”

  I put down the telephone and began to undress. A hot shower would take some of the tightness out of my muscles. I wondered idly what the old lady wanted. If she was worried about my backing her up in court tomorrow, she needn’t be. At this point I had no other choice.

  Despite the fact that the evening was only mildly cool, there was a fire roaring in the fireplace when the maid showed me into the library of the big house. The old lady sat in one of the armchairs facing the fire.

  “Help yourself to a drink, Luke.”

  “Thank you.” I went to the sideboard and poured a small shot of bourbon over some ice cubes and added water. I turned to my former mother-in-law. “Your health.”

  “Thank you.”

  The whiskey was rich and smooth going down. It had been a long time since I could afford bourbon like this. I sipped it slowly. There was no sense in gulping it. “Well?” I asked.

  The old lady looked up at me. “Has the maid gone?”

  I nodded.

  “Make sure the door is closed.

  I crossed the room and checked the door. There was no one in the room beyond. I came back to her. “Why the mystery?”

  Silently she picked up her purse and opened it. She took out an envelope and handed it to me. It was addressed to her. I looked at her questioningly.

  “Read it.”

  I put down my drink and opened the letter. It was on plain white paper and typewritten.

  DEAR MRS. HAYDEN

  You don’t know me but I have been a friend of Tony’s for a long time. Several weeks ago he gave me a package of letters which he told me were very important and to keep them for him. He also told me that he was having a lot of trouble with your daughter and when the time came for her to settle up, these letters would make sure that he got everything that was coming to him. I opened the package and looked through the letters. They are from both your daughter and your granddaughter, the last being as recent as two months ago. They should be very interesting to the police, even more interesting to the newspapers, since both of them were in love with Tony. But Tony is dead now and I am the last one interested in making more trouble for anybody than they already got. So if you are interested in these letters, place this ad in the personals in the Examiner not later than Thursday—COME HOME, ALL IS FORGIVEN. AUNT CECELIA. I will then get in touch with you before I go somewhere else with them. But remember, no lawyers and no cops or no deal.

  The letter was unsigned. I looked up at her.

  “Well, what do you think?” she asked.

  “It could be some crank. I’ve heard of nuts who write letters to people in the news.”

  “I don’t think so, Luke. I called Nora and asked her if she had written any letters to Riccio and she told me she had. I asked her what was in them and she said it was none of my business. Then I asked her if she knew that Dani had written him letters too and she got very angry and hung up on me.”

  “That’s typical of Nora. Whenever something comes up that she doesn’t want to face, she avoids it. Do you think there is anything to this letter?”

  “Maybe there isn’t,” she said. “But I certainly wouldn’t want to take that chance.”

  “This is nothing but cheap blackmail. Even if you pay off you don’t know whether they’ll hold out some letters for another shakedown. I’d turn this over to the police.”

  “Hasn’t there been enough in the papers already? Do you want more?”

  I stared at her. “Haven’t you done more than enough to protect the good Hayden name?” I shot back sarcastically. “Do you think anything can make Nora smell less like a rose than she already does? Do you think people are so stupid they don’t know what’s been going on in her house?”

  “No. People aren’t stupid. But you are!” She shoved the envelope angrily back into her purse. “I’m no longer concerned with what they say or print about Nora. There’s nothing I can do to change that and, frankly, I don’t even intend to try. But perhaps you didn’t read the letter.”

  “I read the letter.”

  “Did you read where it said there were also letters from Dani, and that she was in love with Riccio too?” the old lady asked irascibly.

  “I read it. But I didn’t pay any attention to it. After all, Dani is just a kid.”

  “Then you’re even more stupid than I thought. Dani may be a child in years, but have you taken a good look at her? She’s mature physically and she’s been mature since she was a little over eleven years old. She’s her mother all over again. Nora had her first sexual experience when she was scarcely thirteen, her first abortion when she was a little over fifteen. There were at least two more that I know of before she married you!”

  I stared at her. “You knew all that?”

  Her eyes fell. “I knew it,” she admitted in a low voice. “But I hoped it would remain a thing of the past if she married you. That she would grow up and see what a fool she’d been.”

&
nbsp; “But you still stood up for her. You still protected her.”

  “I am her mother,” the old lady said simply. There was a proud kind of dignity about her. “It was never the Hayden name I really cared about it. It was my daughter. Just as it’s not the name I care about now. It’s Dani. I don’t want her damned before she has a chance. I don’t want her to be like her mother. I want to help her.”

  “Nora said that I wasn’t even Dani’s father,” I said.

  “I know what Nora said. I think I’m old enough to accept the truth now. I wonder if you are?”

  I put down my drink. “Try me and see.”

  Her eyes held mind steadily. “I don’t think even Nora knows whether you’re Dani’s father or not.”

  I didn’t speak.

  “So you see,” she continued gently, “It all comes back to you. To how you feel about Dani.”

  I picked up my drink and took another sip. The ice cubes had melted and the fine taste of the whiskey had been lost in the water. It always seemed to come back to me. Harris Gordon had said the same thing on Saturday, maybe a little differently, but in essence the same thing. Either I was her father or I was not.

  I turned to the sideboard and added some whiskey to my glass. I thought about the baby that I’d loved before I ever knew what Nora would some day say. Then I thought about the child I’d played with on the boat down in La Jolla, after Nora had said that I wasn’t her father. I knew that I loved that child just as much as I’d loved the baby. And as much now as I did then.

  I turned back to my former mother-in-law. “I guess it takes more than an act of nature to make a father,” I said. “It also takes an act of love.”

  Her bright old eyes glittered. “All it takes, Luke, is the act of love. The other thing doesn’t really matter at all.”

  I took a small pull at my drink and sat down. “Now, what are we going to do about the letter?”

  “I’ve already inserted the ad. It will run on Thursday. Today is Monday. That gives us three days to find out where the letters are and who has them.”