The Watcher

by Dolores Hitchens

  THE WATCHER

  DOLORES HITCHENS

  LIBRARY OF AMERICA E-BOOK CLASSICS

  Copyright © 1959 by Dolores Hitchens, renewed 1987 by Patricia Johnson and Michael J. Hitchens. Used by permission of the Estate of Dolores Hitchens.

  Published by The Library of America,

  14 East 60th Street, New York, NY 10022.

  All rights reserved.

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  eISBN 978–1–59853–487–0

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Biographical Note

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE WINDOW at the front of the long, low room gave a sweep of the bay. The summer afternoon had darkened to twilight, the water lay still and silky and on the islands lights had begun to twinkle. The sky gleamed gunmetal.

  The man who sat crouched at the edge of a chair, facing the water, seemed hung in the grip of a terrible indecision. He had the stunned look of someone faced with an enormity of choice. The skin around his taut mouth quivered and twitched. His eyes were fixed on nothing. The hands hanging between his knees stumbled through a tally of knuckles and nails, betraying the inner torment.

  Outside across the water, the auto ferry hooted a warning before wallowing free of its slip.

  Behind him the room was dark except for a single light burning above a desk. Paper had been run crookedly into a typewriter, then half pulled free, and the typed words ran downhill on the page as if hurrying beneath a load of guilt.

  To Whom It May Concern

  And I suppose this concerns everybody. Murder is commonly believed to do so. The fact is that during the last year I have killed three young people. I put down here their names and their ages, the latter as correctly as I know them.

  Edith Tomlinson

  Aged fifteen

  Charles Carrol

  Twelve

  Barbara Martin

  About eighteen

  In each case, it seemed to me at the time that the child was better off dead. This is not inserted here as an excuse for what I have done, but for the benefit of parents and others. For the people who had authority over these children, from whom they should have received guidance and counsel.

  I have chosen my fourth victim. I had hoped not to continue with this thing, but conditions are much too offensive not to demand the remedy.

  Perhaps this may be taken, sensibly, as a warning. And perhaps this last death may be avoided. So take heed.

  There was no signature. The rest of the page was blank.

  The ferry was out into the channel now, and its string of lights bobbed against the darkening water. A single car sat on its ramp. In the sky above a flight of birds winged, arrow-shaped, headed north.

  With a shudder of exertion the man on the chair forced his head up and squared his shoulders. He stared for another moment at the water, the pale sky, the moving ferry like a squat bug skimming the bay; and a faint smile finally touched his lips, smoothing and relaxing his face, erasing the look of tension. It was replaced by something like a humorous—and yet dedicated—submission.

  He rose from the chair, moved lithely back to the desk and bent above the machine, rereading what had been written. He pondered then, eyes remote; finally withdrawing the sheet, laying it aside, and picking up a plain white envelope. He adjusted it in the platen and then typed rapidly.

  To the Chief of Police

  Newport Beach, Calif.

  As if an inner indecision, now thrown off, had been all which had tormented him, his air was brisk and casual. He took the envelope from the machine, folded the page and inserted it, licked the flap, pasted it shut. He removed a stamp from a brass box on the desk and fixed it to the envelope.

  He walked to a door at the rear of the room, opened it, and stood there facing an inner courtyard. Ivy geraniums and purple lantana sprawled beside the brick walks. Across the open area was a lighted window in which was a slender, brown-haired girl working at a loom. She was bent towards a lamp, her fingers full of yarn. He waited to see if she would notice his open door, but she did not. He went out through the courtyard to the street. He passed a grocery store, a liquor store, and a barber shop on his way to the mailbox.

  He dropped the letter into the slot and then stood there, looking at the box as if he might expect some reaction from it. A rejection of the letter, perhaps. The street was quiet, little traffic on it. From the other side of the peninsula, beyond two blocks of buildings, was a wide beach and the Pacific surf. He could hear the surf break, faintly, and the salt wind was fresh. He stood for a moment or so longer by the mailbox, then went back the way he had come. He had noted that the next and final collection of mail took place at nine-forty that night.

  In the courtyard again he glanced in passing at the big window; but now the girl was gone, the loom sat there unattended under the light, piles of bright yarn spilling from the table beside it. He hesitated beside his own door. There was a clatter of dishes from somewhere at the rear of the building, as if the girl might have gone to fix her supper.

  He drew a long breath of the sea wind, let it out in a soundless whistle. He opened his door, went in, shut it behind him. The room was as he had left it, big and comfortable and cool. He looked around carefully, as if appreciating for the first time the sort of sanctuary it offered.

  At a quarter of nine that night a girl named Molly Pettit came out of the liquor store. She carried a heavy sack containing two quarts of cold beer, along with a sack of pretzels and some salted peanuts, plus other items. When she reached the corner where the mailbox stood, she noted two casual idlers, young ones. They wore denim jeans, pulled low, plaid shirts with the tails out, cuffs turned once. Their hair, long for the male gender, was swept behind their ears, folded carefully into a drape at the back. When they saw Molly they stared briefly and then averted their eyes.

  Molly recognized them. She was a friendly girl. She gave them a smile. “Hi. What are you two doing here?”

  It was a moment before they decided that they knew her too. “Nothing.” The taller of the two put a hand on the mailbox, leaned his weight on it. He glanced from Molly to the lighted front of the liquor store, thought something over, then asked tentatively, “Would you buy us some cigarettes?” He jingled some change in his pocket with his free hand.

  She came to
a stop, still smiling. “Folks know?”

  The atmosphere stiffened up. But then they decided to grin about it. They really wanted those cigarettes. “Afraid not,” one admitted. The second, shorter and more deeply tanned, more muscular, added, “Oh, come on. Please.”

  “How long have you two been smoking?”

  They looked at each other in mock consultation, two taut young faces with something slightly predatory under the surface. “Can’t you remember?” The deeply tanned boy was Curtis Appleby. He was almost seventeen, broad-shouldered, his hands grown so fast that they were out of proportion to the rest of him. They were man’s hands. He shoved them into the jeans pockets, rocked on his toes. The gray eyes meditated on Molly. “Don’t try bugging us,” he said. “Just yes or no.”

  She put a hand into the sack. “One pack won’t kill you, anyway.” She tossed it to Curt and he caught it, jerking his hands free and clapping them together around the pack. He smiled then, a real smile; and she winked in answer.

  “We’ve got the money.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Well—thanks a lot.”

  “I probably broke some law or other, dammit,” she said, rearranging the load inside the sack. “And just for you, you young punks.”

  He flinched elaborately. “Don’t call us that. We’re cool heads.”

  She had half turned; looked back. “How’s your mother?”

  Curt’s head lowered. “She’s okay.” He was suddenly busy then, getting the pack open and offering it to Arnold.

  They bent together over the match Arnold produced and Molly watched them for another moment, the brightness of the flame in their faces, the night overhead, and around them the empty street. The fun washed from her eyes. For an instant she seemed to study some lonely secret; then mentally shake herself before hurrying on.

  “Good night.” It was Curt, jerking the cigarette from his lips, looking after her.

  “Good night, Curt.”

  She turned at the next corner, walked the block to the bay, turned again on the broad walk at the water’s edge. She had the place to herself. There were boats out on the bay, anchored, their lights streaking the black water. Someone had a radio going out there and the music sounded remote and full of yearning and loss, and Molly bit her lip over it. She walked faster; not fast enough to outrun the music, which followed her across the watery distance.

  She slowed as she approached the house. It was a big place, bigger than its neighbors, set in closely among the rest, as all of them were around this precious bit of water. There were lights throughout the lower floor, a couple upstairs. She opened the gate soundlessly and went softly up the walk. She knelt in the dark, putting the sack with the beer and pretzels out of sight behind some shrubbery.

  She straightened, took cigarettes and matches from her handbag, lit a cigarette. Then she went up to the porch and opened the front door. Her father sat in an easy chair, watching television. Across the room at a little desk, her mother sat with a calendar, a stack of invitations and notes, and a studying frown. She looked briefly at Molly and said, “Well, darling, did you have a nice little walk?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Are the Prescotts at home, did you notice?”

  “No, Mother. I didn’t notice.”

  “Her mother’s with them. From Chicago.” A pause while the frown came and went. Molly’s mother was a slim, straight woman with an aristocratic face and smooth white hair. She wore a lot of gray, soft gray silk. Her fingers were exceptionally long, and she used them faultlessly. “I suppose I ought to do something in the way of entertainment. A tea or something, while she’s here.”

  Molly glanced at her father. He was sunk in the chair, watching a fight on television, and seemed oblivious to what was being said. “If you like, then, give a tea.”

  Her mother ruffled the pages of the little calendar. “Still, the Eccles are having a lot of people in on Wednesday. The Prescotts, too, of course. They aren’t calling it tea, but that’s what it will amount to. I don’t want to duplicate what they’re doing, it will bore everyone.”

  Molly nodded, her expression uncertain. “Well—something else.”

  “Something on the boat?” She rubbed a forefinger along the edge of the little desk. “A swim party? But no, she’s an old lady. Must be eighty.”

  Molly stood there, wondering what she should say. Better say nothing. Better just to keep quiet. As if some idea of her withdrawal had reached her mother, Mrs. Pettit looked up suddenly and fixed her gaze on the girl. At once, under the cool studying eyes Molly was aware of her small awkward body, the unsure hands, the face no one . . . well, almost no one . . . had ever called pretty, the mop of black hair so uncompromisingly rough and straight. She saw herself through her mother’s eyes.

  Why couldn’t I have been tall and cool and blonde, beautiful?

  Why couldn’t I have been the kind of girl you’d love to have at a tea table, pouring, smiling at everyone, gracious?

  The thought of the beer hidden outside in the shrubbery brought a blush of color into her cheeks.

  That’s me. Beer and pretzels and a dark . . .

  “Do you have a suggestion?” her mother asked with a touch of sharpness, eyes still on Molly’s face.

  “No. I guess not.”

  Almost idly: “What would you like?”

  A rush of feeling, a mixture of grief and remorse, poured through Molly in that instant. Mother, Mother, if you knew what I really love doing, you’d . . . You’d just die.

  “No ideas?”

  Molly shook her head. Her mother gave a little sigh and turned to the contemplation of the calendar. Molly went through the house, the hall, the dining room with its great empty table, the array of chairs. The pantry, that always seemed to smell of butter and fly spray. In the big kitchen she found Uncle Florian seated at the kitchen table under a bright light, playing solitaire. He glanced at Molly, grinned one-sidedly. He was a big man with a sagging shape, face heavily dewlapped, eyes full of a watery patience like an old hound’s. He wore pajamas and a cotton robe. A pot of coffee sat near him on the table, a half-empty cup by it. He was just getting over a week’s drunk.

  “Hi, baby.”

  “Hello.”

  “You look kind of hopped up. Got a date?”

  She smiled a little, neither nodding nor denying, knowing that they understood each other.

  “Well, let’s figure it out. In case they ask——”

  “I decided to call Shelley and then she wanted me to run over for a minute.”

  “Any chance she might telephone? After you’re gone?”

  “No, no chance at all.”

  He gave her a little anxious glance. “I’ve been thinking. Worrying. You know, how you got along while I was out of commission——”

  She touched his shoulder, the rough cotton robe. “I got by. I took a chance, but . . . it turned out all right.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “Open the door about two.”

  He nodded. He reached shakily to drop a red jack on a black queen. “It’s a dirty shame, Molly, it shouldn’t have to be this way——”

  She bent, brushed his thin hair with her mouth. “No, never mind.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Two o’clock”

  “Will do.”

  Molly took a flashlight from a kitchen cabinet, let herself out through the rear door to the porch, then hurried up the dark walk beside the house, back to the spot where she’d left the sack in the shrubbery. She took it up silently, careful not to clank the bottles together, and then as silently drifted up the front walk to the gate. She glanced back at the house there, holding the gate catch in her fingers so that it wouldn’t snap shut when she released it. The wind with its smell of the sea swept over in a sudden gust, ruffling her hair, the collar of her blouse. She could hear a faint echo from indoors, the noise of the fight on TV; and from the water the far-off thread of music.

  She crossed the bayside walk to the railed enc
losure leading to their boat ramp. She crossed the length of the ramp, feeling the cleats beneath her shoes; and by the big float she could see the white bulk of the cabin cruiser gleaming dimly, tiding the water, the hawsers whispering and creaking. She went to the far end of the float, pointed the flashlight at the water, clicked it on and off, on and off, and waited.

  The dinghy slid out of the night like a ghost.

  The face that looked up dimly at her was young, blunt, and smiling. He put out a hand and she gripped it and stepped in. The warm contact of flesh shook her with sudden weakness. The sack slid down her legs to the bottom of the dinghy, she stumbled to her knees, and then she was against him, smothered against him, and there was nothing for Molly but the roar of pulse, his mouth on hers, and the aching, seeking, melting compulsion of her love.

  Wrong. Wrong. Illegal, even. The thorn of grief twisted in her brain, the torment always mixed with the drowning ecstasy.

  A sob filled her throat but she never left off kissing him until the sting of pain in her lips forced her to. Then she pushed erect, straightened her skirt, looked around. They’d drifted from the float out into the bay, the wrong direction. He laughed a little, settling himself quickly to work with the oars. They crept past the big and little islands, sparkling with lights.

  The rackety clutter of the boatyard loomed up at last, a scarecrow forest of junk against the sky, the street lights in the blocks beyond. The dinghy bumped a float. They got out into utter dark and he tied up. They walked directly to the shack. Inside with the door shut, he snapped on the single, unshaded bulb and propped the sack of beer against the mirror on the dresser.

  It was a single room of about eight by ten. There was a slatternly bed, the dresser, an old set of shelves crowded with junk.

  He stood there smiling at her. He wore a white T-shirt, sun-faded denim pants, rubber-soled sandals. He had blond hair cut short, a tanned face, blue eyes; and he was big. He was very big for seventeen.

  To Molly, who was twenty-two, he and his watchman’s shack represented ecstasy and fear and passionate kisses and an unending, clawing foreboding of disaster.