by Devon, Gary;
By the time Slater parked in front of the house, it was nearly six in the evening. He was headed for the front door when his eye caught something familiar on the ground. He leaned over and picked up a toothpick that lay among the bricks of the drive. The end of it had been chewed into a tiny broom. Reeves. No doubt about it: Reeves had been here.
But when? And why?
The toothpick wasn’t weathered. As far as he could tell, it was new. That meant Reeves had been here sometime today. Or yesterday, at the latest. Then he saw more of them, six or eight toothpicks scattered here and there. How long had Reeves been here? How many times?
What the hell’s going on?
Faith met him inside with a cold gin and tonic. But in his left hand, Slater still held the toothpick. He twirled it between his fingers. “Was someone here?” he asked.
“You tell me,” she answered. “You seem to know already.”
“What’d he want?” Slater was watching her carefully, trying to read her expression. But Faith kept her face averted. “It didn’t have anything to do with you, Henry. He was making inquiries about Rachel.”
Look at me, Faith. “What kind of inquiries?”
“He mainly wanted to know if I had seen her a day or two before she was killed, which I hadn’t.” When Faith lifted her eyes, she looked him square in the face. “I don’t like being cross-examined, Henry. Once is quite enough for one day.”
She waited through dinner that evening for Henry to announce that he had to go out. She had a plan in mind for a way she could go about it—the only thing she could conceive of that might reveal to her what she had to know. It would be melodramatic, she knew, but given Rachel’s final letter to her, it seemed oddly fitting. At seven-thirty, Henry made his excuses. This time he claimed he had to see the highway commissioner to prepare for tomorrow’s budget meeting. Faith walked with him to the edge of the brick drive. She stood alone in the near darkness, watching his taillights disappear.
Back inside the house, she went into the bedroom, picked up the receiver and called the after-hours number at the post office. “If I mailed a card to a local address this evening,” Faith asked the supervisor who answered, “when would it be delivered?” Tomorrow, he replied. She thanked him and hung up.
She found a pad of plain white bond paper in a kitchen drawer and a matching small white business envelope, both of them cheap and nondescript. Using her left hand—she was naturally right-handed—and having to restrain and control the erratic impulses of her untrained fingers, Faith wrote:
YOU MURDERED RACHEL BUCHANAN
She drew back and appraised her work. To her eye, the printing wasn’t noticeably feminine, only childlike. In the same crabbed handwriting, she addressed the envelope to Mayor Henry Slater at his home address. It would be a test, she thought. It would be like receiving a letter from a dead woman. He would pass. Or he would fail. Then, without giving herself time to change her mind, Faith drove into town and mailed it.
28
The mail arrived between nine-thirty and ten every morning but, knowing that the white envelope she had sent was about to be delivered, Faith didn’t want to be there when it came. Ordinarily, Luisa went out to the mailbox and brought the day’s mail into the house; Faith discarded the junk pieces and sorted through whatever correspondence remained. Only those items requiring Henry’s attention were left on the small walnut table inside the front door. If she was gone for the day, the mail waited on the table until either she or Henry had a chance to look through it.
Faith was impatient for evening to come, anxious to have it over with. This time it was crucial that he receive the letter without it ever having passed through her hands. She needed an excuse to be without a car so she could be with him when he came home. So soon after Henry left for work that morning, Faith called and asked Nancy Herbert for a ride to the Historical Society brunch.
She waited till midafternoon to call him at the office and explain that she was stranded in town and wondering if she could ride home with him after work. “If you’re going to be in meetings,” she said, “maybe I could wait.”
He hedged, then he said, “Don’t be silly. We’ll go to dinner.”
“That would be perfect. I’ll call Luisa.”
It was after eight-thirty and dark outside when they pulled up in front of the garage. “I’ll let you out,” Henry said, “before I put the car away.” So she got out of the Cadillac, but waited for him on the drive. She didn’t want to enter the house first, nor did she want to go in without him.
When they went inside, she walked into the kitchen to the counter beside the telephone and began to shuffle through the messages. He walked into the living room. Two lamps were burning on tables at either end of one of the sofas, and Luisa had left the light on in the kitchen. Faith flipped it off.
Concealed inside the kitchen doorway, she turned toward the long pier glass inside the front door that reflected much of the living room, including the small gateleg table where Luisa always left the mail. She saw Henry enter the frame of the glass. He was smoking a cigarette, the day’s mail clasped in his hand.
Faith watched his reflection as he continued to go through the envelopes. Slowly his hands grew motionless. She saw it, then, clearly: he had taken up a small white envelope. It had to be the one she’d sent.
He was tearing it open and even though she had positioned herself some twenty feet from him, Faith was convinced of it now. Impatiently Henry stubbed out his cigarette, a long stream of smoke momentarily clouding the glass. When he opened the sheet of paper, everything stopped. He didn’t move a muscle. No movement at all, nothing. Faith could only wait.
Then, all at once, his right hand, clutching the note, fell to his side and his fingers crumpled the sheet of paper into a ball. Without hesitation, he slipped it into his jacket pocket. When he lifted his head, she could see his profile in the mirror. She saw the heave of his chest. His face was drained of all life, all color. He took a step out of the frame of the mirror and she lost sight of him. Time stretched on and on. Only the ticking of the mantel clock interrupted the silence. Finally she heard the tread of his steps—slow, uncertain steps that crossed the living room. Faith had to see what he was doing; she stepped up to the dark kitchen doorway.
Oblivious to her, Henry had smoothed out the crumpled note and was holding it down in the lamplight by the sofa. It was horrible. She could see his nerves were shot. The sheet of paper was lightly shaking as if his hand were palsied. Faith had never seen him more wounded. Oh, God! It was all suddenly too much for her and she fled back into the kitchen’s comforting darkness.
A few seconds passed before he called to her, “Faith, I forgot something. I’ve got to go out for a little while. I won’t be long.” She could hear the tension in his voice.
Although it was nearly nine o’clock, Faith didn’t ask him where he was going or why. “All right, darling,” came her reply.
Let him run, she thought. Where can he run to? To Sheila? What possible comfort could she be?
Faith heard the front door open and close, then the noise of the garage door rising. She waited, listening until he drove away, her heart beating much too fast. Putting her hands over her eyes, she felt the tears held just below the surface, the hysteria beginning to mount. But the worst thought—the one that twisted her heart—was the realization that for no reason on heaven or earth, she still loved him.
Faith rushed to their bedroom and sat down on the foot of the bed. She could feel the panic like waves through her body. Her eyes flew to the vanity. She stood and pushed aside the silver tray and the two torn halves of Rachel’s letter were in her hands, aligned again into a whole.
I tried to reach you this afternoon but you weren’t home. I was afraid to leave word with your maid because I didn’t want Henry to know I called. I must talk to you. Some serious trouble has been brewing a long time that you should know about. This has to do with Henry.
Then the last lines:
If I
don’t hear from you, I’ll know he has stepped in. I wish you no harm.
This time, the letter told her everything.
He killed Rachel.
He killed Rachel to get to Sheila.
My God, my God. He committed murder to get at a seventeen-year-old girl. Why? Why! It was beyond her comprehension. This was—crazy. And only I know. Burris Reeves must know too, but what did he really have? Without the empty setting for the diamond, how would he ever make a case?
“And I suppose you expect to get away with it?” she said aloud. “As usual?” Without being aware of what she was doing, Faith sat clutching one of the bed pillows, her long nails digging into the percale cotton.
For better or worse, she thought. She had taken a vow; she was bound to him forever and ever. But he was a murderer, who would go unpunished—and he deserved to be punished. Oh, yes.
All right, Faith told herself.
All right, God help me, you won’t have her.
Now it’s your turn to pay.
He was racing through the city streets now, speeding, hurtling through the night, his foot set solidly on the accelerator, daring the law to stop him. In the older sections of Rio Del Palmos, the pavements were dark with summer, dark as caves; at the intersections even the wide beams of streetlights were all but smothered in the green-black foliage. I’m going to see her: I don’t care, Slater kept thinking. I’m going to see her. But how? Call her? And if she’s not there—
The danger was bottomless and it was all around him. If only there wasn’t this awful fear gnawing at him every time he stopped thinking about her, about the last time they had been together. She was so beautiful, so willing to do anything he asked her to do. “Got to see her,” he muttered, “got to see her.” Run the risk. Drive by her place, see if she’s there. And tell her to watch out—watch out for Reeves. And what if she’s not there? Maybe try the McPhearsons’. Or her grandmother’s.
Maybe Reeves has already talked to her? Maybe that’s why … What did you say, Sheila? What did you tell him …
Try it. Try it.
Slater ran his hand over his face to wipe away the sweat. You sent that goddamn note, Reeves. To scare me. And you succeeded, you stinking, stinking bastard. Trying to force me to do something. Something crazy. Reeves! Watching me. To see what I’ll do.
Always watching me!
Watching me right now!
All at once Slater’s eyes attached themselves to the rearview mirror, afraid of what was there, expecting to see—but no. The nearest headlights were a block or more behind him. And yet, his instinct continued to whisper that Reeves was there … back there … following him … and he felt frenzy run through his blood as the thought gripped him.
He realized that he was slowing down. Not this street, but the next would be Balboa Avenue, the street where Sheila lived with Mrs. Sanders. Drive by and see if she’s there.
Every few seconds Slater glanced in the mirror. “Where are you, you sonuvabitch?” Stoplight coming up. Reeves, I’ll get you for this.
Don’t let him rattle you, he had to keep telling himself. You can’t go see Sheila. Don’t be crazy. Reeves could be there. Waiting.
The light changed. Slater drove through the intersection. Again, his eyes lifted to the mirror. And waited. And watched. And then, cruising through the patchy light half a block behind him, he saw glimmers of chrome and new paint. Reeves traveling without his headlights on.
I knew it!
Slater was bone cold. I knew it, he thought, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. He sped past Balboa Avenue, headed in the direction of City Hall and beyond that the interstate. He had to think.
All right, you saw me, Burris Reeves thought. You made my car. He slowed, letting the distance between them lengthen. The night had served its purpose.
Where’re you going, Henry, driving like a maniac? Nowhere. Nowhere, at all. You know you can’t get away from me. I won’t let you.
You’re the man nobody knows, Henry, nobody but me.
I know. I know what you did.
All I have to do now is keep the pressure on.
And prove it.
29
“I can’t talk long,” Slater said the next morning. “I’m at a phone booth.”
Sheila picked up the telephone from the dining room table and carried it into the kitchen. “Why’re you calling me?” she whispered.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“I’ve been worried about you. Has anyone tried to talk to you?”
“Not really. I don’t know what you mean.”
“I can’t explain right now—it’s too complicated. Listen, something’s come up. I’m not going to be able to get away this evening. And maybe not for a while.”
“But why?”
“I can’t go into it over the phone.”
She walked toward the deepest set of windows in the kitchen, the ones farthest away from the dining room. “What’re you saying? Is this your way of trying to get rid of me?”
“No, Sheila, God, no.”
“But you promised—”
“I know what I said. Come on, that hasn’t changed. I can hardly hear you. Is someone there?”
“I know I may not be much good to you, but I’m in love with you. Do you mean we shouldn’t see each other at all?”
“I can’t do it now, baby. I just can’t do it now.”
There was a strain in his voice, an urgency, a fear, like the night at the farmhouse. He had frightened her that time, too.
Sheila said, “I hardly ever get to see you as it is. Don’t you miss me?”
“All the time,” he said. “I miss you all the time. But, baby, you’ve got to understand.”
“Okay. For how long?”
“I don’t know. A week or two. Maybe longer.”
“Why’re you doing this?”
“Because I have to. Can’t you get it through your head? Because I goddamned have to.”
All of a sudden Sheila felt dizzy. “So then … what about Founders Day?”
“No,” he said bluntly. “No. Absolutely not. I don’t think so.”
She found herself pleading, “Couldn’t you get away? Couldn’t you please?”
“No, I told you I can’t. Why won’t you listen?”
She was trying to control herself and she was losing. “Jesus, you’re scaring me.” Tears stood in her eyes. One more minute and she wouldn’t be able to hold them back.
“All I can say is—oh, Christ, Sheila, you’ve got to trust me. You just have to, that’s all.”
She was defenseless. She couldn’t get her mind to focus on anything. “Don’t you love me?” she whispered pitifully. “Don’t you want to be with me?” She was crying now, and when he didn’t answer her, she began to sob, the tears rolling down her face. She wiped them on the bottom hem of her work shirt.
“Come on,” he said, impatiently. “Come on, Sheila, I’m sorry but I really can’t talk now. You don’t know what’s been happening. I just can’t be doing this. We’ve got to stop—for a little while.”
“No.” She was crying. “Wait a minute. Just tell me why. Why?”
“I’ve got to get off,” Slater said. “I can’t. I can’t stay on the phone. I’m crazy about you; that’s all you should think about.” And the line went dead.
“Hello …,” she muttered, through terrible rasping sobs. “Hello …”
From behind her, a shadow ebbed into the room. “Bye,” Sheila said quickly and hung up. Putting the telephone on the counter, she wiped her eyes as Faith materialized at the other end of the kitchen. “What’s the matter, darling?” she asked. “Boy trouble?”
“Yeah, kind of.”
Faith couldn’t help it; she saw the blue eyes quivering with big liquid tears and felt a wrench of compassion.
Sheila wiped her eyes a second time with her bare hands. “I loved someone,” she confessed, as if needing to explain, “and now it’s over.” Then she was sobbing
again uncontrollably, but before Faith could respond, Sheila darted out the back door.
It’s happening, Faith thought, it’s happening faster than I’d imagined. Yet, surprisingly, she took little joy in it. I loved someone and now it’s over. For a second she couldn’t help but feel Sheila’s pain. I was young once. And in love. I’m sorry for you, she thought. In love with a murderer. Just like me.
Reluctant to intrude, Faith listened with her hands clenched to the girl crying. She waited another minute or so and then walked out to the back porch, thinking, Sheila, if only you knew, then what would you feel?
She was sitting outside on the step. Hearing Faith’s footsteps, she let her head fall back to rest against the doorframe, but it didn’t last. Quickly she again covered her face in her hands, weeping.
There was nothing Faith could do but wait, fighting back the pity until Sheila’s crying subsided. “I can’t think of anything to say that won’t make this worse, but—” she stopped. She wanted to say, This will all be over soon. Instead, Faith asked her, “Are you going to be all right?”
“I guess so. I guess I’ve got to be.”
I knew it’d all come crashing down.
“Try not to let it get to you,” Faith said. “Why don’t we drop off these things, have lunch and I’ll take you shopping. You’ll feel better, I’m sure of it.”
He’s beginning to panic, to lose his grip.
He’ll do something terrifying.