The Watcher

by Dolores Hitchens

  “Cause of death, the way it turned out.”

  “Oh, we knew who got her pregnant,” Matthews put in, losing patience. “Hell, you remember. Johnny What’s-his-name, his dad’s a big banker in L.A., owns an apartment house in Beverly Hills. Rented the Lido Isle house for the summer and bought a yacht and turned his kid loose on us.” Matthews picked up his cigar and added smoke to the cloud over his head. “If this nut was looking for someone who needed killing, he had it made right there.”

  “It’s been a year. More than a year.”

  “Uh-huh. So why would he get all shook up now? He’s carried it around with him—hasn’t, of course, it’s all a lie—and now he’s got to unload. It doesn’t even make sense.”

  Archer sat a trifle straighter. He was gray at the temples and wore rimless glasses, and something about the way he used his hands, folded them, rubbed and twiddled them, made other people think of an undertaker on first meeting. Second meetings wrought the difference. Archer was a cop and a good one. “Let’s get away from Barbara Martin and the Carrol boy. I’m interested in Edith Tomlinson. I want to get back on it.”

  Matthews’ gaze sharpened. “Always did, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I always did.”

  All resemblance of a smile vanished from Matthews’ face. “Do you have some idea that the Chief and I quit on it before it was necessary? That we left something undone? That we might have used a few more men, more heat, more money? On a case like that?”

  Archer’s composure did not diminish. He glanced from Matthews to the framed picture on the wall, the inked arrow above the scrap of sail, almost invisible in the throng. “I know that you wouldn’t scamp money nor time in an affair concerning the death of a child. Neither you, nor the Chief. What I felt was needed was a kind of continuing interest. Prodding. The nose of the law, still sniffing around the doorstep—to use a figure of speech.”

  “The Tomlinson case has never been marked closed. It’s right up top in the files.”

  “True. But we’ve been busy with other things. Not murder, we don’t have that here. Everybody’s having such wholesome fun.” Archer’s smile didn’t resemble Matthews’ imitation. It was genuine, though mocking. “We’ve had cars stolen, and some burglars came down from Wilmington to see what the other half had that was worth lifting. And of course we had the false alarm about the marijuana parties the teen-agers were supposed to be having, and it turned out to be beer. These things, and things like them, have taken up our days. And for more than three months, Edith Tomlinson’s murderer—if she had a murderer—must be sleeping pretty soundly nights and eating three squares without a nervous worry to give him indigestion.”

  “You think she was killed.” Matthews sounded as if he had just discovered a curious quirk in the other.

  “Think and know. Two different words.”

  Matthews sat chewing it over. “We’ll yank the package on all three and I’ll talk to the Chief, have to anyway, about this thing.” His eyes rested on the letter as he got slowly to his feet. “Cockeyed—for what it’s supposed to be. No name, no prints. It’s been opened. It’s dirty.” He looked suddenly at Archer. “What about him? What’s he like?” More quirks, his tone invited.

  Archer’s thumbs pressed nail to nail above his folded palms. “He could be what he says, the murderer of all three. I can’t believe it, yet, but I’m not going to close my mind to it. He could be a nut, too, somebody with a mean grudge to settle. He wants the police to go around and poke things up and bring the grief back. He’s got somebody he wants to see crying again.”

  Matthews flinched. “Yes, that part’s going to be nasty.”

  “Or this. I like this. He could be someone who knows something about Edith Tomlinson’s death. He wants the police to move, but he’s not the type to issue an invitation and attract attention to himself. So he cooks up this letter, he adds a couple of other cases to make it seem we’ve got a mass murderer on our hands—something he knows will get us going even if we’ve closed file on the Tomlinson case.”

  Matthews stared at Archer as if the detective had exceeded all expectations. “You like that?”

  “It sets well,” Archer said formally.

  “Until we find out otherwise, we’ll have to treat this as a genuine article. I mean, on the surface. Of course, the Carrol kid and Barbara Martin will pan out the same. And Tomlinson too, probably.”

  “We’ll see.” Archer too was standing. He was slender and compact. His clothes were neat and well cared for, and the one thing which might make it seem he wasn’t the merchant or undertaker he resembled was the businesslike bulge of the gun on his hip.

  Matthews leaned above the letter. “There’s one more thing here, the threat. Crazy like the rest. ‘Better off dead,’ he says. He’s going to strike again, he’s got the fourth victim all picked out. What do you make of that?” He was inviting Archer to make nothing of it.

  But under Archer’s reserve lay something grim and harsh. “It could be the snapper.”

  “What?”

  They looked at each other. “He had a reason for writing, crazy or otherwise. And I can be wrong. He might know nothing at all about Edith Tomlinson or the other two, just picked the names out of old newspapers. He might just be planning something he figures will fit in. And that since he’s prepared us, we’ll bite. Another moral retribution, by a nut who’s playing executioner.” There seemed in the room the sudden crackling of fear, sharp as the release of an electric current.

  “You like that, too?”

  Archer didn’t reply. He moved away from the desk. “Where do I start? With the Carrols?”

  “I’ve got a trip to make to the upper bay around noon. I’ll see them. You can call on Lottie Tomlinson. Get on with that sniffing around the doorstep, as you put it.”

  Archer was at the door, his hand on the knob. “I know it’s got to be done, but damned if I’m going to enjoy it. I’ve seen her a time or two, shopping and so on, and she looks so damned lost and lonely. I think she took the kid sister’s death pretty hard.”

  “See if she can figure out why anyone would think Edith Tomlinson would be better off dead.”

  “Not in those words,” Archer said, shutting the door behind him.

  He drove down the peninsula. Traffic was pretty light. It was a bright sunny day, typical for June. Glimpses of the bay showed a few sails and motor launches out on the glassy water, a promise of the fleet to come. School would be out soon, summer places would open up. The business of having fun would swing into high gear.

  It’s like one great big apartment house, he thought with the accustomed irritation. People crowded in to get near the water. Why the hell couldn’t there have been something here about the size of Puget Sound? Then they wouldn’t be sitting in each other’s laps.

  The flats where Lottie Tomlinson rented were built in the shape of an L. A courtyard led in from the street. Someone had been watering the greenery, the bricked walks were damp. Archer avoided a couple of puddles. He glanced in through the big window before ringing the bell. The studio room where Lottie did her weaving seemed to be empty.

  She came from some other room, opened the door, recognized him at once. She had on shabby corduroy pants, a white blouse, sandals. She’d pushed her hair back and tied it with a scrap of black silk. No make-up. Archer decided that he had roused her, not from sleep but from some unhappy introspection, perhaps over a cigarette and the dregs of breakfast.

  When she saw him the flinching withdrawal was obvious.

  “I’d like to talk to you, if you could spare a minute or so,” Archer said politely.

  “About Edie?” No, not about Edie, her eyes begged.

  “Concerning your sister, yes.”

  She licked her unrouged mouth and glanced at the room behind her. She was preparing an excuse, something about work to be done, or having to go out somewhere. Archer made his move before she could gather words. “We’ve never cancelled the investigation into your sister’s death. Ev
ery once in a while we have to check, make sure there’s nothing new, and so on.”

  She looked at him helplessly, then moved back in defeat. “Come in, then. Do you want to sit down?” She was hoping that he would stand and be brief, but Archer moved across the room casually to a broken-down couch. He moved some swatches of hand-woven materials and sat down with his hat beside him.

  After a moment’s hesitation she pulled the chair away from the loom and sat down in it. “It’s been three months, exactly three months today. Is that why you came?”

  “No. I hadn’t thought of the date,” Archer admitted. He was sizing up the room swiftly. He thought it gave off a miasma of neglect. The girl, too, looked as if she could stand a bit of attention; he wondered in that instant how much cooking she was doing for herself.

  “Is this something you do for . . . everybody?”

  Torment the survivors, she meant. Archer nodded.

  “I don’t know anything new at all.”

  Archer stretched his legs and adjusted the crease in his pants. “Do you have relatives here in the bay area?”

  “No. There was just Edie and I. We have an aunt in Philadelphia. I don’t ever remember seeing her.”

  “You have close friends? ‘What I mean . . . someone to sort of help you over the hard spots?” It was not at all what he meant, but she had no way of knowing.

  “Everyone’s been awfully good to me.”

  “In particular?”

  She spread her hands in an attitude of mild bafflement. “Just . . . everyone. I had to . . . I hate to sound ungrateful . . . I had to sort of fend people off and make them leave me alone. At a time like that there’s just so much sympathy you can take. And then you can’t bear any more.” Her copper-colored eyes under their thick lashes studied him anxiously to see if he really did understand.

  “And then they let you alone?”

  “Well, mostly.”

  “And who didn’t?”

  “They all meant well,” she said, brushing it aside.

  “Has anyone been persistent? Has anyone kept you stirred up or seemed to take an interest in your grief.”

  She seemed almost shocked by the thought. “Oh no, there’s been nothing like that.”

  He decided that her preoccupation with her own torn emotions would have prevented her noticing, if there had. Abruptly he said, “Did your sister know anyone named Barbara Martin?”

  She shook her head after a moment, a moment during which he thought some tag of memory fluttered before her. “No, I’m sure not. I’ve heard the name, it’s familiar somehow. But we never knew anyone—”

  “And anyone named Charles Carrol?”

  This struck home. The coppery eyes took on a glint of fear. “He was a child who died. His father was backing the car in the driveway.” Her fright crushed back the bewilderment, the nebulous dread with which she had greeted his arrival. “Why are you trying to connect Edie with these two? I seem to remember now, there was something about this girl Barbara Martin, something in the papers a long time ago. She’s dead.”

  Archer didn’t answer. This wouldn’t have surprised her had she known him better, but she didn’t know him at all. Pallor, a look of shock, spread in her face. “What are you trying to say to me? What do you want to prove?”

  Almost primly he admitted, “I merely wanted to talk about your sister’s death in the bay.”

  “We talked before. I had to—a lot. Not to you, always. There was another detective, a Captain Somebody, and I went with him several times to the float where it happened, trying to figure out how it had happened, how Edie had fallen with her legs tangled in the line like that.”

  Archer seemed to relax a little in the face of her stumbling fright; he cocked one leg on the other, flexing the crease in his pants as he did it. “Didn’t you ever worry about her, out in that little dinghy so much?”

  “It’s . . . it’s why everybody lives here. To be near the water, so that the children can enjoy it.” Under his implied criticism, she grasped for self-justification. “Edie was a good sailor. It was a good little boat. Most of the time she was with a group, other kids who had boats or who helped her sail hers. It was unusual for her to be completely alone.”

  “She had dates?” he asked casually.

  He was surprised at the gush of grief he sensed in her. Tears filled her eyes, spilled over. “No. I didn’t . . . didn’t allow——” She caught at the shreds of voice. “She was so young, and I thought there was plenty of time.”

  He knew then. And it seemed that the figure of little Edith Tomlinson stood invisibly with them. Too young. Denied, because there was all of life ahead of her. She had asked, obviously. And this older girl had said no.

  “With whom had she wanted to go?”

  A flicker of surprise at the unerring deduction. “A boy named Curt Appleby. He wasn’t her age. Older. I don’t think he’d even asked her, either, as yet. I think Edie wanted the permission just in case. And I—I wouldn’t give it.”

  “You decided the question simply on a basis of her age? And his?”

  She moistened her lips; her glance flickered away.

  “You were acquainted with the boy’s . . . family?” Ugly, mean; he felt mean and ugly throwing in the hint like this. But this was a case in which, on its crackbrained surface, murder had been done because of disapproval. And it was best to sound out such disapproval when he could, among all those involved.

  “I think he has only a mother.”

  A couple of blackbirds flew into the courtyard outside the big window and began to squawk and fight over something, a bug perhaps, in the shrubs.

  She said determinedly: “You didn’t answer my question. I want to know what connection Edie’s death has with the Carrol child, or with Barbara Martin?”

  “We don’t know,” he said frankly, looking directly into her strange copper-brown eyes. “Someone has written an anonymous letter, connecting the three cases. Confessing to murder in each, in fact. This is something you will keep in confidence, please.”

  She reacted as if he had thrown a bucket of water into her face. She drew back in shock, caught a ragged breath. She would treat it in confidence, he was sure. She would not repeat what he had told her.

  She didn’t even believe it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MOLLY PETTIT came down the stairs tying a knot behind her neck, the rope that fastened the neck of the red linen halter. She wore brown shorts, straw kicks on her slim feet. She found Uncle Florian seated in the precise spot of the night before, though now he was looking distastefully into a cup of coffee. A cigarette smoldered on a tray. He glanced at her, wrinkled his big nose, and said, “Why can’t they invent a morning beverage that at least smells like Scotch?”

  The little colored maid who drove down from Huntington Beach every weekday stood at the sink, humming to herself and clattering dishes. Mrs. Pettit was across the room at a small desk-and-bench arrangement, what she called her household nerve center, with telephone and shopping lists in front of her, a pencil tapping her teeth.

  Molly said hello generally, helped herself to coffee from the percolator on the sink, sat down opposite her uncle. He gave her a second, elaborate squint. “Say, you’re looking pretty sharp today. Must have had a good night’s sleep.”

  She stuck out her tongue at him briefly. “No. I’m just happy. I’m going on a picnic.” She hadn’t expected her mother to catch it but Mrs. Pettit looked around at once.

  “With whom, dear?” When Molly didn’t instantly answer, she added, “I thought perhaps with the Zackers. I know they’re going out today, the channel, perhaps all the way to Catalina.”

  Molly hated to disappoint her, but if she were to lie and say yes, it was the Zackers, her mother would be so proud she’d tell everyone. And then the lie would be found out. At the same time Molly felt a breath of fear clouding her thoughts. It was unlike her mother to try to pin her down.

  “I’m not going on a boat at all, Mother. Just down the coa
st, just roasting wieners and swimming and such ordinary things. . . .” Her voice died; her thoughts took it up: there’s nothing glamorous about me, Mother. I’m so earthy. So common. You’d die of shame to know how common I am. She stole a glance in her mother’s direction. Mrs. Pettit was frowning.

  “Well, dear, don’t get badly sunburned. I’m planning an evening affair for the Prescotts. You know, Mrs. Prescott’s mother is visiting.”

  “Yes, you told me.”

  “She’s the widow of a former governor of Illinois. Very important people.”

  Molly’s eyes were drawn to her uncle. He was adjusting an invisible monocle with which to glare into the coffee cup.

  The colored girl turned from the dishes. “You want some breakfast, Miss Molly?”

  “I’ll fry an egg.”

  “No trouble. I’ll fry it.”

  “You’ll do it better,” Molly admitted. She avoided looking at Uncle Florian; even the cold touch of fear couldn’t keep her from choking with laughter if she did. She bent her head, the mop of untidy black hair brushed forward against her cheeks.

  “Don’t get sunburned,” her mother repeated. “I want you to wear that white eyelet, that off-shoulder dress. You look fine in it.”

  I look awful. I look like an over-frosted cake. I look as if my mother had put me in it to conceal something people might notice otherwise.

  “It’s really a nice dress,” Uncle Florian said softly, so that Molly knew he had guessed her thoughts.

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  “Just one thing. Save the day. Let me do your hair,” he begged.

  “Oh, now, Florian!” her mother cried in disgust.

  “I’ll admit, I’ll freely admit, the last time——” He put both hands on the table, leaning earnestly towards Molly. “Not too hot. But the time before that—it was fine. Wasn’t it? Didn’t people comment?”

  Molly let him see the love in her eyes. “Yes, darling, it was striking. It made me almost resemble Sophia Loren. Everyone thought so.”

  Her mother had turned fully in her chair. “You are not supposed to resemble an actress, Molly. You are supposed to look what you are, a sweet and wholesome young lady. A girl with breeding and good taste, a nice family, a refined home.”