My Son, the Murderer

by Patrick Quentin

  The policeman came in. Bill went with him immediately. We didn’t even look at each other again.

  But Barnes was looking at me. For the first time his face seemed completely exposed. There was nothing in his eyes but an almost priestlike look of compassion.

  “You see now, Mr. Duluth, why I brought you here.”

  I returned his gaze, listening but only automatically.

  He said: “I only brought you to help you, to try to keep you from butting your head against a wall. You heard the evidence. He inherits. He knew he inherited. Believe me. You’ve got to believe me. There isn’t a jury in the world that wouldn’t convict him.”

  He took a step towards me. Almost harshly, he said: “Give it up. For God’s sake, give it up. Talk to McGuire. Do what McGuire says. Stop this hoping. It will kill you.”

  It was, I supposed, against every canon of reality to see a policeman as stricken as that by victory. I might have been grateful to him. I might have thought him the nicest man I had ever met. But I had no fondness left over. For all his unwanted, his utterly unanticipated sympathy, he was just another enemy like Angie, like Jean—like the whole lot of them trying to kill Bill with kindness.

  He said: “I’m driving uptown, Mr. Duluth. I’ll take you home.”

  I found then that I could hate without mercy. Hatred now was my only climate.

  I said: “To hell with you.”

  I went out of the room and out of the building and into the street.

  18

  I took a taxi home. I supposed I had to get in touch with Bill’s lawyer, but I wanted a few moments alone first. There had been so many pressures from outside. I had to shake off their influence.

  While my key was still in the lock, Leora opened the apartment door. She loomed there, all mother, defying the world.

  “Mr. Duluth! Bill, he never done it.”

  “No,” I said.

  “He’s a crazy boy. Wild? Sometimes I could whip him. But he never done it. Not Bill.”

  Leora and I, I thought. The two champions.

  As I moved past her into the hall, she said: “Your brother’s here. That lawyer-man came. He wanted to talk to you. I didn’t know where you were. I wasn’t going to talk to no lawyer-man. I called your brother.”

  “Is the lawyer still here?”

  “No. He left just a couple of minutes back.”

  I went into the living-room. Peter was standing by the mantel. Iris was sitting on a couch, smoking a cigarette. Newspapers were strewn all over the cushions at the side. Theater people! I thought bitterly. They had bought all the papers, as if this was just another set of reviews.

  I knew they loved me and were clever and could help. But I wished they weren’t there.

  When I came in, Iris got up. They both wore that expression I was getting used to—the Lieutenant Barnes expression— anxious, wary, compassionate.

  Peter said: “Hallo, Jake.”

  “Hallo.”

  “Where have you been?”

  I sat down because I was tired. I chose a chair as far from them as possible. “Where do you think I’ve been? Out—trying to do something.”

  Iris said: “Jake, dear, Mr. McGuire, the lawyer’s been here.”

  “I know. Leora told me.”

  Peter said: “He’s a good man, Jake. He knows his business.”

  Suddenly I was back with him on the street corner outside the police station. “You said that last night.”

  Peter looked at me awkwardly as if I was a problem that could be solved only with the greatest finesse. I thought: I’m going to get another lecture for my own good. I said:

  “I’m very tired. If you’ve got anything to say, can’t we talk later?”

  Peter said: “McGuire wants to see you, Jake. It’s very important. He should be back at his office any minute. Shall I call and tell them you’re here?”

  “Why is it very important?”

  “Because …’ Peter seemed to crumble.

  Iris broke in: “Let me do it, Peter.” She came towards me. She looked, as always, beautiful and kind, but she, like Leora, was being Mother. “Jake, dear, you still think Bill’s innocent, don’t you?”

  I glared at her. “Is everyone in the world going to ask me that? Yes, he’s innocent.”

  “And you’ve been out this morning trying to prove it?”

  “Yes.”

  She came up to me and put her hand on my shoulder. “Did you get anywhere, Jake?”

  The vision came, as terrible now as it had been heartwarming, of Bill throwing himself against me. Pop, don’t let them kill me.

  “I didn’t get anywhere.”

  Iris paused. “Everyone else has an alibi. The lawyer told us.”

  “Yes.”

  “And—Jake, there’s something else the lawyer told us. About Ronnie’s will.”

  “I know.”

  Peter put in: “You know? How?”

  “Barnes told me.”

  Iris went on: “Ronnie left all his money to Bill.” The pressure of her hand on my shoulder strengthened. “Jake, dear, this is terribly difficult. Please, please, you mustn’t hate me for saying what I’m going to say. We know how you feel. And if you think Bill didn’t do it, then I think he didn’t do it— and so does Peter. But thinking he didn’t do it—I mean, when there’s all that evidence—Jake, that isn’t going to save him, is it?”

  She made me look at her. She was all sympathy and love, but I couldn’t be fooled any more. I could tell an enemy when I saw one.

  “No,” I said. “Thinking he’s innocent isn’t going to save him.”

  “Then—Jake, the lawyer’s very clever and he’s a good person. I’m sure of that. And you must see that he has to think of the legal aspect. He knows the law. He knows juries. He told us that, with the evidence as it is, there isn’t a chance in a million of Bill’s being acquitted, unless …”

  She broke off. “Oh, how can I say this?” She glanced hopelessly at Peter. “Jake, dear, listen—please. Maybe things will change. We can never tell. But at the moment McGuire thinks —and he has to have your consent, of course—McGuire thinks …”

  She put up a hand to cover her face. Quietly but firmly, Peter finished it. “With Felicia, with the whole history of instability, McGuire says our only hope is an insanity defense —temporary insanity. That’s what you’ve got to okay, Jake. McGuire has to line up the psychiatrists and all that. He assures us that, with the material we have, we stand a very good chance with temporary insanity.”

  Was I always to be wrong? When I thought I had reached the bottom of the pit, was there always to be yet another abyss yawning below? Felicia was tumbling past me through the air again.

  And despair, like black panic on the verge of a scream, welled up in me. I looked at Peter, but I was thinking of Bill. That lawyer, Pop. All those questions—as if I was crazy or something … I thought of Barnes. For God’s sake, give up. Take your lawyer’s advice.

  The lawyer’s advice!

  Iris was saying: “Jake, I know it’s terrible. But Peter and I’ve thought. It’s the only hope.”

  “Yes,” said Peter.

  “To prove Bill’s insane?” I asked.

  “Temporary insanity.”

  I said: “I’d rather they killed him.”

  I got up. Although I felt weaker than a gnat, I knew that this was the moment to be strong. This was the moment when, if I didn’t by some superhuman effort, turn back the tide, it would sweep Bill and me away forever. I stood looking at my brother and sister-in-law, hating them, not because they were Peter and Iris but because I had learned that, when your back is against the wall, hate is the only weapon.

  I said: “Isn’t it about time you listened instead of laying down the law? Bill is innocent. You all think I’m trying to kid myself because I’m an infatuated father, because I feel guilty for turning him in, because of Felicia … Hell, I don’t give a damn what you think. But I believe Bill is innocent because he is innocent. And if Bil
l is innocent, it can be proved. And if it can be proved—it’s going to be proved. And, if any lawyer comes crawling round here babbling about insanity pleas, it’ll give me great satisfaction to kick him downstairs.”

  I knew then that I had achieved mastery over them, but I knew too that I couldn’t hold it much longer. Last resources don’t have much staying power. Both of them were watching me. Iris’s face was still a blank mask of pity. But Peter’s expression was changing. A different look had come into his eyes and, because I knew him so well, I felt a faint stirring of triumph. Peter wasn’t one to give up. He wasn’t like me. Despair wasn’t in his nature. It was almost as if I could read his thoughts:

  My God, if Jake can feel like this, then …

  We all three stood there. Then suddenly Peter said: “Okay, Jake. We kick the lawyer downstairs. What do we do after that?”

  Iris cried: “But, Peter …”

  Iris didn’t matter. Not anymore. Once Peter turned, I knew Iris would turn, too. My brother is far more practical than I. In a few minutes he was enthusiastically taking the lead, full of suggestions. It was a question of alibis. Okay. Had anyone yet really tried to establish Bill’s alibi at the film? We knew it was a Western; we knew more or less the locality. He must have looked pretty conspicuous. One of the box-office girls might recognize a photograph. Had anyone checked Johnson’s alibi? Did anyone really know that Jean had been locked in that room? And what about Angie and Gwendolyn Sneighley? Had they just said they were alone together? And the theater, too. The Laceys and Barnes claimed that Maggie had seen them there. But had I actually talked to Maggie myself?

  His new resourcefulness was like oxygen on Everest to me. I called Maggie at the office. As I expected, she wasn’t any help. She and her husband had met the Laceys going into the theater; and they had talked to them again in the interval. But I wasn’t discouraged.

  When I was through with questions, Maggie said: “Jake, are you coming in today? I wish you would.”

  “You know something that could help?”

  “I—I don’t know. But it’s something I want you to know, something I can’t say on the phone with the switchboard and everything.”

  “I’ll be in,” I said.

  I told Peter the whole story of the Laceys and the tickets. He was no more discouraged than I. “We can fix even that,” he said. It was amazing how the mood had changed. Even Iris was infected now. Peter drew up a plan. Iris was to tackle Johnson and he would take Bill’s photograph and work on the picture houses.

  Suddenly, prized out of limbo by my new euphoria, came the thought of Jean’s key. All suspicions that Bill might have been lying to me were now banished. Of course he hadn’t been lying. Then—someone else had taken the key out of the handbag. Who … ? Who possibly had had a chance to get at it before it was returned to Jean? The question, of course, answered itself instantly. No one on Fire Island could have taken it. But Bill had driven my car back to the garage and taken the subway to Sylvia Rymer’s. It had been from Sylvia Rymer’s that he had started uptown to 58th Street. Sylvia Rymer could have taken the key—Sylvia Rymer, one of Ronnie’s abortive “geniuses,” who had seemed to hate Ronnie as much as Bill had, whose friendship with Bill had been based on the fact, who loved Bill and who was desperately jealous of Jean… !

  Peter’s voice broke into my thoughts. “And you, Jake— what are you going to do?”

  I almost blurted out what was bubbling in my mind, but I managed to check myself. I mustn’t let Peter and Iris know anything about the key yet. If they knew about it, they might be back doubting Bill again and all I had won would be lost. No, at the moment, Sylvia Rymer was to be my private property. I managed to keep my excitement in check. I said: “I’m going to Sylvia Rymer.”

  “Sylvia Rymer?” echoed Peter. “Why?”

  “She’s closer to Bill than anyone. She might know something.” And, to blur it, I added: “After that, I’ll go to Maggie.” “Okay,” said Peter. “We’ll meet here later and check.”

  “Yes,”

  “And we’ll work it out.”

  “Yes.”

  I started for the door, but Iris ran to me and threw her arms round my neck.

  “Jake, darling, I’m so sorry. I was the one who was defeatist. I thought it was hopeless. The lawyer convinced me. Jake …”

  “It’s all right, dear.”

  “We’ll save him, Jake.”

  “Yes,” I said. “We’ll save him.”

  And the hollow ring wasn’t in my voice any more.

  19

  I took a taxi to Perry Street. I had lived so long on the brink of despair that, now I could hope again, I felt almost exhilarated. Who had ever thought of Sylvia Rymer as a suspect?

  Had Barnes even checked her alibi? She had attacked me mercilessly for turning Bill over to the police, but that righteous indignation could have been a deception. Hadn’t she been passionately involved in Bill’s star-crossed love for Jean? Hadn’t she told me she was Bill’s “mother”? If she had taken the key, if she had gone to Ronnie, hating him, loving Bill, hoping in some muddled way to help Bill …! None of it was exactly straight in my mind. But what did that matter? Here at last was the first door, open a crack, to Bill’s freedom.

  But I should have to be careful. I could ruin everything by a premature accusation. I must bide my time.

  I reached the apartment house. By daylight the neighborhood had a rowdy sort of vitality. Children were playing on the pavement; young men and girls were squatting on the house steps, idling in the spring sunshine. Had Bill, I wondered, sat out there in those ancient days before yesterday —listening earnestly to Sylvia Rymer’s talk about poetry, about her Guggenheim, about “Rome, the Paris of the Fifties”? I remembered that first, antediluvian scene on the day of Ronnie’s return when I had first heard Sylvia Rymer’s name. “She’s a wonderful person, Pop—the most wonderful girl I’ve ever met.”

  Sylvia Rymer.

  I climbed the three drab flights of stairs and rang her buzzer. The door was opened at once. There she was, still in the same blouse, the same unbecoming sweater, peering at me through the harlequin glasses. It took her some seconds to recognize me. She must have been blind as a mole. When she realized who I was, she asked urgently:

  “Is there any news? Any good news?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Come in, come in.”

  She pulled me into the foyer and shut the door. She led me into the living-room. The studio-couch bed hadn’t been made. The desk was still a mess of scattered papers and empty wine glasses. It was as if the horrors of last night had only stopped a moment before, as if Lieutenant Barnes’s police car were still just driving away, taking Bill to the police station. She stuck a cigarette in her mouth and lit it. Her hand was shaking. She said: “You haven’t seen him, I suppose?”

  “I have.”

  “You have?” She glared at me. “That’s a surprise. I should have thought you’d have spent the day mourning at Ronnie Sheldon’s bier.”

  A few hours ago I should have been routed by Sylvia Rymer’s implacable vindictiveness. It didn’t rout me now. I sat down on the edge of the unmade studio couch. I said:

  “Just why do you dislike me so much?”

  “That’s not very obscure, is it? I’m a friend of Bill.”

  “And a friend of Bill has automatically to dislike me?”

  “What do you think? Do you imagine he was happy with you? My God, he’s only nineteen. If he’d had any understanding or love at home …”

  “And I didn’t give it to him?”

  She puffed out cigarette smoke as if she wished it was a poisoned arrow from a blow-dart.

  “A son has to respect his father before he can get any support from him. Isn’t that the ABC of pediatrics?”

  “And he didn’t respect me?”

  “Respect you when you spent your life licking Ronnie Sheldon’s boots, selling your soul down the river—to that monster?”

  I wasn’t
there to defend myself as a father or to defend my friendship with Ronnie. But her young, bigoted, complacent contempt exasperated me and I said:

  “All this talk about monsters! Do you think my son was such a fragile little lily that he needed twenty-four-hours-a-day coddling? Daddy loves you? Daddy won’t have any other friends?”

  “Friends!” she said. “Ronnie Sheldon—a friend!”

  “What was wrong with Ronnie Sheldon?”

  She swung round. “You want to hear what was wrong with the great Ronnie Sheldon? You want to hear what he did to me?”

  I didn’t want to hear it. Already I was sick and tired of Sylvia Rymer’s penetrating analyses of others. But I saw this was my line; this was the direction in which she was to be led.

  “Yes,” I said. “Tell me what was wrong with Ronnie Sheldon.”

  She had started to pace up and down the dreary room. The hatred and spite in her were so strong that they seemed to infect the atmosphere. I thought: What on earth did Ronnie do to her? Raise her hopes about “the long novel in verse” and then let her down? Writers, I thought. And the publisher came out in me. Writers with their vanities, their vituperations ! Basil Lacey, Gwendolyn Sneighley, Sylvia Rymer.

  She began: “It was years ago now. I was only twenty-one. I’d just come from Pocatello, Idaho. They breed a very young twenty-one in Pocatello, Idaho, I can assure you. You should have seen me. I was a cross between Shelley and Little Nell. I’d written this novel in verse. Heaven knows, it probably stinks, but I thought then it was the greatest achievement since Faust. I sent it round to the publishers. It came back with relentless regularity. Then I sent it to Sheldon and Duluth. It didn’t come back. Instead I got a little note saying that Mr. Sheldon was most interested and would I come to the office. That, you can imagine, was the Great Day. Shelley was finally recognized. And Little Nell was all of a twitter. A famous publisher, a famous genius-creator, a famous millionaire! I dressed to the teeth. I borrowed a long cigarette holder. I left my glasses at home, although I can’t see a cow at three paces without them, because of … You know. Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses. I was off to the office, ready to conquer with genius and charm—Pocatello variety. How could I lose?”