by Doug Allyn
“Then I turned down the lane to the sheep pasture. I wasn’t planning anything, I just did it. And he put his hand on mine on the steering wheel, and he said to keep going. Then farther on, he said, turn around here, and I did. He was saying things like Walter would be back in a few days, life would go on, we had our day in the sun, the sweetest memories were forged in tears and pain... I stopped the car, and he hurt my hand. Drive, he said, and I said no. No more. He said he would walk, but first he took my face in his hands, the way he had done to you. He said you were too young, but I was too old, and which was sadder, and he kissed me on the forehead and got out of the car and started to walk. He was in the headlights, walking away, nearly naked, covered with snakes... I don’t think I meant to do anything. It was Walter’s car, an automatic, and suddenly it raced forward and hit him.” She turned away from the wind finally. Her cheeks were wet with tears.
“He hit his head on the concrete at the end of the bridge,” she said. “He was half off the bridge; his skirt had come off, and one sandal. I took off the other one. And I took a ring. I rolled him the rest of the way off the bridge into the brambles. They supported him for a long time, but finally he sank down out of sight.”
She sighed and moved to one of the heavy chairs and sat down. “Men cast such long shadows, Ellen. My famous husband, then Pryor, and finally Philip. His shadow reaches across thirteen years.”
Ellen didn’t move. She felt she had frozen into the floor of the deck, had become an ice woman. Neither spoke again until Haliday came out to the deck.
“Dr. Melton, I’m afraid I have to place you under arrest.” Another man read her rights to her; Haliday asked if she understood, and she looked bored and said of course.
“I will make a statement, nevertheless,” she said then. “Philip Seymour came to my house and forced me to accompany him at knife point. He forced me to drive his van to that place by the bridge, where he undressed and was trying to take my clothes off. We struggled. The van door opened and he fell out and hit his head. I believe he died instantly. When I tried to help him, he fell off the bridge. I was panic stricken. I think I must have blacked out then because the next thing I knew I was here, at the coast house in his van. Later, I removed his personal belongings and kept them just in case his body was recovered and anyone claimed them. I left his van in the parking lot by the Hilton Head lighthouse.” She stood up and regarded Ellen for a moment. “That is my statement. I won’t change a word of it.”
She left with Winona Kelly and another detective.
When Haliday came back, Ellen was still standing rigidly fixed in place. “Will they believe her?” she asked.
“No. But who’s going to dispute her story? It’s her word against the wind. Come on, let’s go. Your lips are blue.”
At her car he said, “Blair, would you be offended if I drive? To tell the truth your driving scares the hell out of me.”
Wordlessly she handed him the keys.
“What will happen,” he said, heading back toward Crystal Falls, “is she’ll talk to her lawyer, who will talk to some of her trustees, who will talk to the prosecutor, and that will be that. She’ll go up for something — manslaughter, obstruction of justice — something like that. It will all be discreet with little publicity. Case closed now instead of dragging out for the next five years with an uncertain conclusion.”
“You’re driving too fast,” she said after a few minutes.
“You’ve got a nerve, Blair.”
“Look, Haliday, I know the road, every curve, and at this time of day, this is too fast.”
He slowed down.
“You used me,” she said. “You left us together so she would talk. You gambled that if she knew I hadn’t told you any names, she would think of a story that would let her save face. That was deliberate, wasn’t it?”
He squealed around a curve and slowed down again. “You’ll probably lose your job, won’t you? What next?”
That was the only answer she would ever get, she knew. “I’ll have to stay until the end of the school year. It’s going to be a real mess. Then, I don’t know.”
She realized that she was now at the same place she had been two years ago when she had come home defeated. She hadn’t been able to keep a husband, to keep a job, to find a new job, and she had run home. After that the decisions had been made for her. She hadn’t resisted because she hadn’t realized how adrift she was. Even Jordan, she thought with a twinge of guilt; even with him she had let herself drift with the flow, accepting easy choices, pretending no decision had to be made as long as nothing was stated overtly. Now she had to deal with that. And Patty, she added. Something had ended there, too. How far those six people would have gone to avoid embarrassment she couldn’t guess, but they had turned their backs on murder, however they justified it. She thought of Hilde, who believed she finally had worked her way out of the shadows, only to be dragged back in. And of the other women Philip had swallowed whole, diminished. They passed the college, the president’s mansion, the beautifully maintained gardens, and she thought clearly, whatever she did after June, it would not be here.
Haliday kept driving through Crystal Falls at the posted limit of twenty miles an hour. “Where are you going?” she demanded.
“I have to check in at Salem,” he said. “Didn’t I mention that?”
“Do you own a car, Haliday?”
“You know, if you ever decided to go in for a little more schooling, criminology, something like that, you probably could get a recommendation or two to make the special investigation unit. If that would interest you.”
“Forget it, Haliday,” she snapped.
“Yeah, Blair, I will. For one thing, you’d have to call me Lieutenant, or even sir. Protocol. Show a little respect for authority.”
“So already I’m disqualified,” she said coldly.
He laughed. When he stopped the car at the courthouse in Salem, he got out and waited until she walked around to get behind the wheel, and then held out his hand. “You’re pretty good, Blair.”
They shook hands. “Thanks, Haliday. For a lot.”
He nodded. She got in the car and fastened her seat belt.
“Be seeing you, Blair.”
She waved and started to drive. In the rearview mirror she could see him watching her until she turned the corner.