Verdict Suspended

by Nielsen, Helen

  “I have to be. I was—I still am Sheilah Dodson’s attorney,” Steve reminded him. “You aren’t the only one she held by a short length of rope.”

  “No, sir,” Trench agreed. “There’s Mr. Shepherd. He actually served time. And Mrs. Shepherd. She left Belgium a step ahead of the international police. Something to do with smuggling, I believe…. Are you through with the glass, sir?”

  Albert Trench’s eyes were like small black beads, as hard as ebony and as devoid of expression. Steve gave him the empty glass.

  “I think you’re the one who’s well informed,” he said. “Which reminds me, there’s a question I’ve been wanting to ask you. When you went to the village for ice the night Miss Dodson was killed, did you see anything of Jaime’s sports car … either going or coming back?”

  “I testified before the coroner’s inquest for nearly two hours,” Trench answered angrily.

  “But you’re not before the inquest now. Did you see it, Trench? Anywhere?”

  “No, sir,” Trench said.

  “Are you positive? … I got an acquittal for Jaime because there was a period of at least forty-five minutes when nobody knows what happened in that house. Forty-five minutes when he had to be somewhere.”

  “I assume he was in the house,” Trench said blandly. “Don’t you?”

  “Don’t I …? What do you mean?”

  “I assume that Mr. Dodson continued quarreling with his sister until he killed her. Don’t you?”

  It was cold and brutal. While Steve groped for a reply, Trench placed the glass carefully on the tray. He seemed amused by Steve’s reaction. “But there is one thing I’ve puzzled about,” he added. “In view of Miss Dodson’s care in choosing her associates, is there any particular reason why she trusted you … sir?”

  On the hill above Cypress Point, the wind was beginning to worry the tops of the slender trees and tease dry piles of sand and plaster dust into little rebellions against gravity. Jaime left the tire tracks in the cement and walked swiftly to the front of the structure. Sheilah’s voice goaded him every step of the way. “If you don’t believe me, go up to the Center. A change has been made.” The taunt took on importance. There had to be a specific reason why he drove up to the site on the day that cement was laid, and he found the reason at the approach to the job. It was there before his eyes all the time, but he had to be able to see it. There had been a ritual. Before ground was broken for any construction job, a sign was erected: “S. and J. Dodson, Architects.” That was all. Sheilah liked simplicity. But now the sign told a new story. Wide, angry swaths of black paint crossed out the letter J. Jaime stared at the sign and retroactive anger welled up inside. This was Sheilah’s indelicate way of destroying what she could no longer hold. It was her brutal way of advertising to the world that she’d severed all relationship with her troublesome brother.

  Another piece of forgotten time slipped into place. But the important piece was still missing. For that, he had one more stop to make….

  Steve hadn’t exaggerated. The main gate to Sheilah’s house was locked, but the police had overlooked the service entrance and there were no guards in sight. Even murder, he reckoned, lost its audience in time. The parking area was deserted. He left the convertible in the service yard and walked to the front of the house. The door was locked. He found the key on his key chain and let himself in. Once inside, it was as if Sheilah had merely stepped into the next room. Everything was as it had been on the night of her death. The furniture was uncovered and in the identical positions at which he’d seen it last. The bar was ready for the party that never occurred. The bottles were in readiness; the glasses arranged in neat rows. One martini glass had been broken. Jaime moved slowly across a room that began to regress in time. Everything was the same. Everything but the light. It came only from the glass roof above. Jaime found a light switch and completed the illusion. He listened for the memory to give him answers.

  Sheilah had stood at the bar. She was hostile from the moment he arrived. But Sheilah was a clever antagonist. At a critical moment she rang for Trench.

  Trench came with a shaker of martinis; poured and retired.

  “The announcement concerns you, Jaime,” Sheilah said. “I’m cutting you out of the business.”

  Jaime stood quietly and let the memories flood back, and the anger came again like a volcano building up inside him. Each word of Sheilah’s, each payment of the only thing she had left to give him—humiliation—stoked the fires of jealousy.

  “The center!” he taunted. “That mess of gingerbread on the hill! Why don’t you put gold leaf on the ceilings and red plush drapes on the stage?”

  “I might,” Sheilah said, “but I don’t have to make so many compromises any more. I don’t have to pay your way.”

  Because it was true, he couldn’t bear to hear it. Involuntarily, his arm shot out before him. The martini glass grazed Sheilah’s face. Liquor splashed over her dress, and a bright patch of red appeared high on her cheek. The glass broke sharply on the hearth.

  “Jaime … don’t be a fool!”

  Jaime leaped forward and grabbed the poker from the fire set. The stain on Sheilah’s face was growing. A thin line of blood crawled slowly down the side of her cheek and circled her chin. Jaime raised the poker and truth came crashing through the silence of Sheilah’s house…. Truth was a man with shaggy red eyebrows and unruly red hair who went fishing on the beach without a line and needled strange questions in the mind.

  “Jaime … what happened after Sheilah fell?”

  Jaime smashed the poker down on the bar. Hard, like a hammer on an anvil.

  “I killed her!” he yelled. “I picked up the poker and I killed her! I killed her! … I killed her!”

  Truth geysered up in prisms of shattered glass. No more illusions. No more voices. No more doubts. Jaime’s arm threshed at the shade of Sheilah until he was exhausted, but he couldn’t find silence. There was still one more voice.

  “Jaime!” Greta cried. “My God … Jaime!”

  He whirled about. She was standing on the other side of the room, paralyzed with horror. What she saw was a wild man—disheveled, his face streaming with perspiration. What he saw was a woman he was afraid to love.

  “Jaime—what is it? What are you doing here?”

  She was everything he wanted in life … and she was moving toward him through the nightmare that was truth.

  “Go away from me,” he said. “Go away from me—please! … I’m a murderer!”

  Chapter 11

  Greta stood motionless in the center of Sheilah’s living room. There was nothing alive about her but her eyes. They were greedy for understanding.

  “Jaime,” she said, “put that poker down.”

  It was a sensible thing to say. Jaime didn’t expect it. He lowered his arm and let the poker slip from his fingers to the floor.

  “You’ve made such a mess,” she added. “Look at that broken glass! You might have cut yourself … or put out an eye!” Incredibly, she stooped to the floor and began to gather up splinters of broken glass. “Go out in the kitchen,” she said, “and get a dustpan.”

  Jaime knelt beside her. “Greta, didn’t you hear what I said?” he demanded.

  “I heard when I came in. I saw the lights come on in the roof and I thought it might be you. I came as fast as I could … and found you smashing glasses …”

  He caught her by the wrist and held fast. “Greta, don’t you believe me?”

  There was fear in her eyes, and pain. Tears were an instant away. Belligerently she said: “There must be a broom closet in this freak house … Jaime, you’re hurting my arm!”

  She wouldn’t answer him. He let go of her and went to the kitchen. The room was a mystery to him, but he finally located the closet and returned to Greta with a dustpan and a broom. She was standing at the bar looking down at it with a puzzled expression.

  “Jaime,” she said, “there are only seven of my glasses here.”

  It wa
s difficult to follow Greta. She walked in on the tail of a hurricane, calmly began to pick up the debris, and now, ignoring a confession of murder, was calmly taking inventory of Sheilah’s glassware. He dropped the broom and dustpan and grabbed her by the shoulders.

  “Are you hysterical?” he demanded. “Is that why you won’t listen to me?”

  She was afraid. He could feel the tension in her body.

  “I love you,” she said, “and I won’t believe you.”

  “But it’s true!”

  “No. I won’t let it be true! I’ll get the poker, Jaime, and I’ll smash everything in this room. I’ll shout, ‘It’s not true! It’s not true! It’s not true!’ … If that will impress you. I’ll top your performance, Jaime.”

  “But I’m serious,” Jaime said. “I remembered everything before you came in…. Listen to me. I’ve been to the hospital. There was a third psychiatrist. Steve hired him. He gave me sodium amytal. They get confessions with sodium amytal. Confessions, Greta—ask Steve. He knows.”

  “No—that isn’t true!” she said.

  “But it is true! The psychiatrist is in town now. His name is Curry … but he calls himself Mr. Howard and he lives in a house on the beach. He watches me. Steve watches me. They’re waiting to see how long it takes for me to remember what I told them at the hospital.”

  “Jaime, you sound sick.”

  “No, I sound well—for the first time since the night Sheilah died. Listen, Greta, all day I’ve been following my own trail. I know now what I did that night.” He let go of her shoulders and walked to the mantel. Everything was in place. He turned and faced her again. “I came here early,” he said, “just as Trench testified. I had a row with Sheilah. She told me she was cutting me out of the business. She had something on me and could do it. She said things about you. I lost my temper. I threw my drink at her. She was off balance. She fell … I picked up the poker and killed her.”

  Greta absorbed his words without change of expression. She still held one of the monogrammed glasses cupped protectively in her hands. “What did you do then?” she asked.

  “I drove to the Center. Sheilah told me to go there—a change had been made. The change was the sign. She had my initial painted out. It was her nice way of telling the world she was finished with me…. I know I was there because I found tire prints in cement poured that afternoon.”

  “I don’t understand,” Greta said.

  “Tire prints—from my car. I went to Hanson’s Pier today looking for the wreckage. It’s there … in a garage. One fender was torn off in the accident. The underside of it’s coated with dried cement.”

  “But that doesn’t explain anything!”

  “It explains everything! Don’t you see what happened? I killed Sheilah. I drove to the Center, saw the sign, then headed for the highway. It was twilight when I reached Hanson’s Pier. I was going too fast to see the barricade.”

  “Jaime, you aren’t making sense!” Greta protested. “I saw you here a few minutes before eight. You didn’t have time to get to Hanson’s Pier when you did if you drove to the building site first!”

  “But I did go …”

  “When? After you killed Sheilah? If you did, you must have come back. Would you do that, knowing guests were arriving at eight? Would anyone?”

  “But she was dead!” Jaime insisted. “Here, on the floor—” He stopped abruptly. Truth was a clown. It appeared with a painted face and a tattered suit. It juggled red balls and turned cartwheels. In its lapel it wore a giant sunflower that spewed out water; it teased and taunted and appeared when least expected.

  “Jaime,” Greta said, “what’s wrong?”

  He didn’t answer. He left her twisting a crystal highball glass in her hands and went back to the kitchen. He opened the broom closet again and took out a wastebasket. He dug through the contents until he found a heavy brown paper wrapper. He took it out and looked up to see Greta watching him curiously.

  “It’s a wrapper from the ice dispenser in the village,” he said. “The ice may still be here—” He dropped the wrapper back into the trash and opened the freezer compartment of the refrigerator. Trench was a neat housekeeper. Inside was a deep glass tray filled with cubes. “So Trench really did go to the village,” he mused.

  “Of course he did!” Greta said. “Don’t you think Steve checked his story before he went on the witness stand? The house was open, Jaime. Just as Steve told the jury. It was open when I came and found Sheilah—”

  “On the floor,” Jaime said. “With blood on the side of her face. A thin trickle of blood that ran down to her chin.”

  “Yes,” Greta said, “but anyone could have come in, Jaime. Anyone but you!”

  Loyalty was touching, but a memory should be complete. Truth was still a bouncing ball of memory just beyond reach. Greta clutched the highball glass like a beggar with a cup. He took it from her hand.

  “What were you saying about the glass?” he asked.

  “One of the set is missing,” she said. “There should be eight of them. There’s only seven.”

  “Maybe I smashed it with the poker.”

  “But you didn’t. I looked. You smashed the seltzer bottle.”

  “Then there were only seven glasses in the set.”

  “I sent eight glasses. You know that. You paid for them. Jaime”—Greta’s voice took on a tone of awe—”someone used that glass. If we find it, won’t there be fingerprints?”

  “There may be another place for trash,” Jaime said. “Maybe Trench broke it and didn’t want Sheilah to know.”

  “I’ll find out.” Greta was excited. She was still resisting what Jaime had told her with every alternative that came to mind. Before he could stop her she took down the wall phone and dialed.

  “Hello—Steve? Oh, I thought I heard Steve’s voice. No, it’s you I want to talk to, Trench. This is Greta Dodson. I’m in Sheilah’s house…. Never mind how I got here. I want you to tell me something. Those glasses I sent Sheilah—how many were in the box? … Eight? None broken? … What did you do with them?”

  Jaime watched her face. She was talking too fast. She was too tense. She was trying too hard to cover her fear. Loyalty was a strange thing.

  She replaced the phone and turned to him, excitedly. “There were eight glasses,” she said, “and none was broken. Trench put them all out on the bar. Jaime, a highball glass doesn’t just disappear!”

  “Sheilah was dead,” Jaime said. “I remember that now. I remember looking down at her on the floor.”

  Greta didn’t answer.

  Jaime capitulated. “All right, let’s look.”

  Sheilah was a perfectionist. A dinner party, even on short notice, meant the house would be spotless. The rooms were few—large and sparsely furnished. Sheilah liked a spatial quality. It made the search easier—but still fruitless. They proceeded from room to room, leaving a blaze of light behind them, until the last room was Sheilah’s with its balcony overlooking the sea.

  Jaime slid back the door. It gave easily: there was no lock. The balcony was inaccessible from the beach. The sunset cast a warm red glow on the outer world and revealed a deck on which was neither furniture nor one delinquent highball glass.

  Reluctantly he stepped back inside and pulled the door shut. It didn’t catch. He applied pressure, but something was in the way. He knelt down and examined the track.

  “What is it?” Greta asked.

  Jaime came to his feet holding a sliver of glass in his hand. “You’re the expert on imported crystal,” he said. “What do you make of this?”

  It was a small convex triangle that had apparently wedged into the rubber lining of the frame and had been dislodged only when Jaime opened the door. He held it before her between finger and thumb.

  “Look!” she cried. “It’s cut! It has a part of the initial!”

  It was a part of Sheilah’s missing glass. They searched the doorframe. Jaime picked up a few fragments on the end of his finger. Nothing more.


  “Whoever broke the glass picked up the pieces,” Jaime said, “but was it before or after …?”

  He didn’t explain what he meant. He shoved open the door and went out onto the balcony again. The railing was wood frame and lateral siding extending three feet above the balcony floor.

  “It was still daylight,” he said. “The preparations were in the kitchen—”

  “Jaime, please—what are you talking about?” Greta asked.

  “About a mind … and the tricks it can play … and the way it always tells the truth in spite of the tricks …” Suddenly animated, Jaime leaped to the top of the railing.

  “Jaime! Don’t!” Greta cried.

  “There’s only one way out of Sheilah’s bedroom,” he said, and then he jumped. One instant he was poised on the railing; the next there was only the red sky and the darkening sea beneath. Greta ran to the rail. Jaime was crumpled on the sand below. Then he moved; his feet threshed wildly for footing in the sliding sand and he began to roll, slowly, grotesquely toward the sea.

  “Jaime!” Greta screamed.

  Behind her, the telephone was ringing. Sharp, commanding. She looked for Jaime again, but now he’d rolled out of sight under the overhang. Jaime was gone. The telephone was a present demand. She turned back and found the extension in Sheilah’s bedroom. It was Steve.

  “Greta,” he said, “listen to me. I’ve been watching the house through my binoculars. I saw Jaime leap off the balcony…. You’re to leave the house—now. Do you understand?”

  “No!” Greta said. “Jaime may be hurt!”

  “He’s not hurt—not yet. Greta, for God’s sake believe me! There’s something about Jaime that you don’t know—something he doesn’t know. But he’s going to find out in a very few minutes…. I’m leaving for Sheilah’s house as soon as I hang up. If you care for Jaime at all, meet me on the path.”

  Steve gave her no chance to answer. A sharp click terminated the connection. The house was silent … empty … ablaze with light. A spacious, immaculate mausoleum. Greta dropped the telephone back in the cradle and ran….