heartbreaks.
I listened to him and I knew he would survive. He wasn’t whining. He spoke in a clear tight voice, about loans and percentages and banks and the screenplay and the actors who would not and could not wait—the whole web of tentative and interdependent commitments that had taken him two years to weave, but which had now vanished with Celia’s decision.
We forgot to change seats, he in his need to talk and me in my need to listen. Celia was wrong about my liking nothing better than to comfort Blair. There were many things I would have liked better than to listen to the crisp exact details of his ruin.
Half an hour went by. Cars passed in the highway below us. Not many. They couldn’t see us, nor we them. No car came down Carmen’s drive. Nobody else left the party. There we were, halfway down the hill, forgotten and forgetting, until finally Blair’s voice ran down. He looked at his watch.
“Ten thirty-six,” he said. “We better get going. Thanks for listening, Jenny. It helped. You always help me.”
He did sound eased. He swung me over his lap and took the wheel. We continued downward, turned to the right on the highway, and came opposite the long, little-used flight of wooden stairs that led up the middle of the hill to Carmen’s house.
There was something lying out of place, there in the margin.
Blair braked. The moon was up and we could see the heap of organdy.
We sprang from the car and there she was. Celia. In the dusty weeds, and dead.
No car came by while Blair used his flashlight long enough to make sure she was dead, and to see that she had been strangled.
“We can’t help her,” he said harshly. His fingers bit my arm. “Get in.” I limped on stockinged feet. “Quick!” He lifted me into the car. “Oh, Lord, don’t leave a shoe!”
He picked it off the pavement and threw it into my lap. He ran around, jerked the car away from there, and yanked it sharply to the left onto a country road, which was another way back to town—the way we called “going around the mountain.”
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think. But when we were into a fold of the hill, he stopped the car. “You don’t get it.” I could feel him trembling.
“We shouldn’t run away,” I said.
“What else can we do?” he said grimly. “No, you don’t get it. But
I do. I said I’d like to wring her neck, remember? In front of a room full of witnesses. Who is going to believe that you and I were talking in the car all this while, and that somebody else came and wrung her neck?”
“But I can swear—”
“Who would believe you?” he said sadly. “Ah, Jenny, that’s the way it is. Don’t you see?”
I saw. That was the way it was. My heart had been on my sleeve for all to see, for him to see, a long, long time. No testimony of mine could help him.
“What good can it do if you and I are both dragged into the limelight and dirtied by the newspapers?” he demanded. “We didn’t hurt her. But we’ll be the first ones suspected. We are set up for it. Perfectly.”
“We’d be cleared,” I said feebly, “as soon as they find out—”
“And will suspecting us and dirtying us help them find out?” he said angrily. “How could it? Suspecting us will only help the one who did do it. By the time they get through with you and me . . .” He shook his head desperately. “I’m not going to let this happen. You were good to listen. You were doing what was kind. You don’t deserve to be dragged into something like this. Just because I had to cry on your shoulder—”
“You didn’t cry,” I murmured.
But I could see ahead now and if I had been the kind to carry on,
I would have cried. I could see myself trying to tell the truth, which would sound so feeble and unbelievable beside the powerful motives both of
us had to—hurt Celia, who had hurt us.
I thought of my father, who was old and not well. Celia’s death would be rough enough on him. How much worse, to have to watch me being suspected of her murder! I felt a pang of terror when I realized that on top of all the rest, I was Celia’s heir. And loved the man, as everyone knew, who needed Celia’s money so much.
Blair was right. We were set up for it—both of us, together, perfectly.
“Jenny,” Blair said, “we are going to have to get out from under.”
“I don’t see how,” I said.
“We’ve lost—let’s see—thirty-nine minutes. If we could account for that time some other way . . .”
“Hurry on to town, you mean?”
“No, we can’t make up that much time. And we can’t take the chance of speeding. But I’ve got an idea so crazy . . . Jenny, have you nerve enough to fake an alibi?”
“I guess so.”
“I suppose it’s wrong—”
“I’m not so sure it would be wrong.” My teeth were chattering.
“It might be foolish.”
“We’ll go back if you say so,” Blair told me. “I could take it. Don’t much care. But I want to get you out of this mess. Please let me, Jenny?” he begged. “It will be so damn nasty.”
The thing I was thinking now was purely selfish. If we had to go through something “so damn nasty,” then never (never, never, never!) could Blair and I be together. “What do you think of those two? Hah!” “Pretty fishy.” “What’s the answer? He got the money, she got her man. Hah!” I could hear it . . .
The law couldn’t make us innocent. We would be guilty the moment we got together—or judged guilty by people’s tongues. So we would have to stay apart.
I took hold of myself. “If you’ve got an idea, tell me,” I said.
We sat there a few more minutes, while Blair figured it out. That scenic mountain road was not much used at night. We were lucky, and no car came by.
Blair was doing arithmetic. He explained. I understood. We could try.
Finally we went on another mile. High on the bank to our right was a cabin. Blair knew who sometimes lived there. It was a wild and lonely spot, but we could see a light in the windows.
Blair let the car coast silently on the slight downgrade, until we were well beyond that cabin. Then he stopped the car and I got out.
“It had better be you,” Blair whispered, “because everyone thought
I was drunk, remember? Can you do this, Jenny?”
“Of course,” I said. “Wait till I get my shoes.”
“Shoes?” He fumbled around on the seat of the car. “Jenny, we can use your shoes,” he exclaimed. “Take just this one. Hook the heel in your belt. You are supposed to have been walking, but of course you couldn’t walk in those things. Look, I’ll throw your other shoe out of the car a couple of miles farther on. You watch out for it. That’s going to look good. Look like evidence. Now, don’t try to rouse anybody for nine or ten minutes. Can you time it? Use the waiting to beat up your stockings. Maybe your dress. Remember, you have walked you don’t know how far. But it’s taken you nearly an hour. This is how we make up those lost minutes. Use the phone right away. I know this guy, Frederick, is there, this week-end. There’s a light. But if by chance he isn’t home, you break a window and get in and use that phone.”
“I will. I will. I understand.”
“It’s risky. If I meet anyone in the next few miles, we’ll be in the soup, Jenny.” He touched my cheek. “So young and fair . . .” I thought he said.
“We are in the soup,” I said impatiently. “Let’s do it, Blair. Better to try to get out than just stay there.”
His fingertips trailed off my face. The car started and softly crept away.
I paced and stamped and kicked the ground with my stockinged feet.
I dragged my organdy along some briary stuff. I tore my stole. I fell on my knees to dirty my skirt. These were mad antics, alone in that wild dark silent spot. All the time I was counting off the minutes. Not thinking about Celia. Not thinking about anything but making his plan work.
Finally, I went limping and panting up the rutted way
to the cabin.
I beat on the door. The man who opened it was stricken dumb.
“Excuse me for disturbing—” I was really breathless. “Our car is stuck up the road. Could I please use your phone?”
“Of course,” he said shrilly, as if I had frightened him out of his wits. “Come in. Come in.”
He rolled his eyes at me as I limped in, looked about, and spotted his phone. I called my father’s house. “Dad? It’s Jenny. Blair and I started home around the mountain and the car broke down. I just don’t want you to worry. What time is it now?”
“It’s eleven-o-four,” said my Dad in gruff precision. “I thought you were going to stay over to Carmen’s.”
“No, we started home. But I don’t know when we’ll get in now. Got to call a garage.”
“Was it a crackup, Jenny?” Dad was suspicious.
“No, no. I’m perfectly all right, and so is Blair. Something conked out in the motor, that’s all. Don’t worry.”
“Where is Celia?”
“Oh, she stayed,” I said carelessly. (I couldn’t tell him she was dead.
I wasn’t supposed to know it. Ah, but he would know all too soon!)
I called an all-night garage.
“Lady, that’s a long way around the mountain and it’s pretty late.”
“It’s only a little after eleven,” I said tartly, and gratefully. I argued with him, emphasizing the time, insisting that I had left a friend marooned in the car. At last he agreed to send somebody. Then I sagged.
“Sit down,” my host said cordially, as if he had now assimilated his surprise. “You look tired. My name, by the way, is Lloyd Frederick.”
“I’m Jenny Olcutt. I guess I look outlandish. This costume was for a garden wedding, a long time ago today.”
“You look very pretty,” he said gallantly. “A bit bedraggled. Haven’t you any shoes? How far did you have to walk? Better let me pour you a drink.”
He was an extraordinarily handsome man. A small-time actor, Blair had said. No one could have been kinder. He brought me the drink. He also brought a big bowl full of warm water and I stripped off my ruined nylons and put my feet, that I had taken care to bruise, into the warm comfort of it.
Frederick watched with amusement as I plucked the shoe from where it was hanging at my belt.
“You can see that these aren’t exactly hiking boots,” I said, patting my belt. “Oh, me,” I sighed. “I’ve lost my other shoe.”
“Shoe!” He raised an eyebrow at the frivolous contraption. “I thought it was some kind of modernistic corsage. How could you even stand up in such a thing?”
“They are pretty much for sitting down,” I laughed. “Still, it’s possible.” I thrust my damp toes into it and fingered the straps. “Like this. Oh, darn, the other one is lost. And they cost a fortune.”
“A fortune? For three cents’ worth of whatever that is?” He seemed amused. “There’s never any traffic on this road at night. No one is going to run over your other shoe. We’ll find it.”
He was going to take his car out and bring me to Blair. I knew that Blair had had plenty of time to fake a breakdown, so I didn’t stall too long with the footbath. I played my role. I thrust aside the heavy knowledge of Celia’s death, and the heavy knowledge that I was telling lies and using this kind man for a purpose he couldn’t imagine. I even found it possible to be rather gay and to look at him flirtatiously.
We went outside. I was barefoot. I “forgot” my one shoe.
He went behind the cabin and backed his car out from a kind of lean-to. I got in. It was a strange ride. For some reason neither of us spoke of anything but my missing shoe. We were obsessed by it. We went on a mile, two miles. No shoe in the road. We went almost three miles.
Then we saw the flames. I screamed. A car was burning, down there, down at the bottom of the mountain slope off to the left. We got out and ran. A strange man stood at the brink. Then I saw Blair lying on the road.
I knelt beside him in panic. His warm hand clung to mine. I could hear the stranger talking rapidly to Mr. Frederick. “Me and a friend was coming around the mountain in his half-truck. Didn’t mean to get on this road. Fact, we was lost. We was looking for a turnaround. So we find this fella, stalled in a fancy car. Well, so we manage to turn the truck and we was going to give him a push, see would that start his motor. By golly, that fancy job went right outa control! He pretty near went over with her. Just made it out, as she tipped and went over. Busted his leg, though, or so it looks like. Fella that was with me, he’s gone back to town in the truck to get an ambulance out here. Better wait on it, I’d say. Don’t want to move no broken bones. Cheee, look at her burn!”
Only I could hear Blair’s whisper. “Jenny, too many shoes. I must have given you her shoe.”
Celia’s shoe!
“They are just alike,” I whispered.
“When I found a pair of shoes on the car floor . . . didn’t know what to do. Couldn’t throw one of them out—Jenny, I didn’t know which foot! Do you see? Couldn’t let you end up with two left shoes. Fatal. Didn’t know which one was the ‘other’ shoe.”
“Ssh.” I was so close we could have kissed. “Where are my shoes now?”
“In the car. Burning.”
“They’ll burn fine,” I said. “It won’t matter. Are you hurt very much?”
“Not so bad,” he said, his voice low but calm, almost cheerful. “Doesn’t anything shake your nerve?” He caught at my shoulder. “Skip all this, Jenny. You’d better tell the truth. Nobody on earth could ever believe . . . So young and fair.”
His voice had become too loud. So I kissed him. Afterward, I whispered, “Too late. We have to stick to the story. Don’t you talk at all.”
“If you get hurt—” he began, and then he fainted.
I rode into town in the ambulance when it came. All the way
I thought about those shoes. Celia’s right shoe was in the man’s cabin. Both my shoes had burned with Blair’s convertible. But I’d said I’d lost one on the road. Well, I would say that it must have been taken away by some animal.
When Blair, still unconscious, had been delivered to the hospital and I was limping wearily through the lobby to call a cab and get home,
I ran into the policeman.
“You Miss Jenny Olcutt?” He wore plain clothes, but he was
some kind of policeman—I knew it at once. “Had a little trouble?” he asked.
“Well, yes, we did, and I’m—a little bit worn out.” I smiled politely.
“I don’t know if you’ve been told.” He shifted his weight. “Miss Celia Olcutt. Isn’t that your sister?”
“Stepsister,” I corrected mechanically.
“She was found dead,” he said, abruptly enough to shock me.
It wasn’t difficult to look shocked. I was scared.
“I understand there was a quarrel at this party?” So he knew about that.
“Yes, that’s why Mr. Meaghan and I left early.”
“Pretty drunk, was he?”
“Well, I drove. He fell asleep.”
“Left that house out there at ten o’clock? Took the mountain road? Why?”
“I don’t know why,” I said flatly. Blair and I had not discussed any possible reason. But I saw, now, that my very lack of reason was more convincing.
“Car stalled, you say? So you walked about three miles back to this Frederick’s place? Why back?”
“Going ahead was farther and steeper,” I explained.
“Why didn’t your boy friend do the walking?”
“Well, you see, he had been drinking.”
“Yeah,” the policeman said. It was convincing. “Now you were at Frederick’s place by eleven-o-four?”
“Was I?” I frowned.
“That’s when you phoned your father. The garage says you phoned them at eleven-o-eight. That right?”
“I guess so,” I said, looking bewildered. (But I was not. He was only doing the arithmetic that B
lair and I had planned for him to do.)
“Now, Celia Olcutt,” he went on, “she left the party at ten twenty. Must have walked down those long stairs.”
“Why?” I burst out. “What for? Was she going to hitchhike on the highway? Or what?” I honestly did not know the answer. My bewilderment was so convincing that I felt a surge of confidence.
“We think she could have had a rendezvous,” he said. “She was seen talking on the phone. Or could be she just wandered outside and somebody called to her.” He looked sly.
I looked as baffled as I genuinely felt. “Called to her?”
“Maybe I better check some figures with you, young lady. Mr. Meaghan’s car went a mile down the drive to the bottom of the stairs, then three miles beyond. At maximum speed on that kind of road at night it would have got to the place where it broke down in, say, seven or eight minutes. After that you walked in your stocking feet three miles up and downgrade in the dark. Superhuman if you did it in say, less than forty-five minutes. So even taking the fastest times, it didn’t work out. Celia Olcutt left the house at ten twenty, and it must have taken her some time to get down to the highway and get killed. Let me see—all you and Meaghan had was between, say, ten twenty five and—”
“What are you talking about?” I said. “Ten twenty-five?”
“I mean if you killed her,” he said.
I just stared at him.
“If you did, then you got to tear off four miles on the mountain road and walk back three and get there not long after eleven. It just don’t work out.”
“You’ve lost me,” I said to him boldly.
“I’m saying that if you really walked back from that breakdown, then you and Blair Meaghan are alibied for the murder of Celia Olcutt.”
“I should hope so,” I said angrily.
“Now, now,” he said in a gentle tone. “I can see you aren’t a stupid young lady. You had motives, you know—both of you.”
“Did we?” I protested. “Well, how did we get at her? Did we wait around for our victim to ‘wander’ out?”
“Or you called her out, on the phone,” he said soberly. “There’s a phone booth in a gas station not too far down the highway.”
Night Call and Other Stories of Suspense Page 8