The Watcher

by Dolores Hitchens

  Molly licked her lips. Her uncle’s face flushed suddenly with red splotches and he got to his feet. “Goddammit, Clara, you make me sick!” He left the kitchen to the precipitate slap slap sound of his ancient slippers, bathrobe wadded against his skinny legs.

  “Now what on earth got into him?” Mrs. Pettit was staring after him in outrage.

  “I don’t know.” Molly, too, rose from the table. “I’m going to eat breakfast out on the steps. It’s such a beautiful morning.” She took the plate from the little colored girl, poured fresh coffee, put plate and cup on a tray and took it out. The smell of the sea was fresh and strong, blowing in on the Pacific tide. The small yard displayed a lot of bloom, hibiscus and cannas in yellow and red, a heap of purple lantana in a corner. Molly ate quickly, her mind on the day to come. She would need Uncle Florian’s car. Her own, the striking blue convertible, was much too noticeable.

  She thought suddenly of Larry, seeing him vividly sitting cross-legged on the bed, the torn sack of pretzels between them, the light shining on his lean brown body. A loosening warmth rushed through her. Her hand, lifting the cup, began to tremble.

  Oh, my darling . . .

  Then she felt clutched by anguish; the salt taste of tears filled her mouth. My love, my love.

  There were no new words, though when she had begun to love him everything else had changed, the whole world had taken on a strangeness. Who was it had said when you fell in love all the popular songs suddenly seemed to mean something? The word love itself seemed to be a bell ringing in her mind.

  She stood up unsteadily, took the tray inside, ignored some remark by her mother, and hurried upstairs to her uncle’s room. He was seated on the side of his bed in pants and undershirt, putting on his socks.

  “I need your car, Uncle Florian.”

  He looked up, his hound’s eyes full of understanding. “The picnic? Keys are on the dresser. Get some air in the left front tire before you go very far. Been meaning to get it fixed but didn’t.”

  She went to the dresser, picked up the keys in their worn leather case. “If it weren’t for you——”

  “I’m not doing you a damned bit of good,” he said harshly. “I can’t. My brain’s been fried too long in alcohol. If I weren’t a rummy I’d think of something, I’d figure out a way.”

  “There is no way.” She was looking into the mirror, not seeing herself. A fringe of black hair lay across her forehead. Her mouth looked pinched.

  “Goddammit, he won’t be seventeen forever. At least I’ve got that to look forward to.” He glanced up and caught the wince of pain. “Kick my ass, baby. Kick it hard. I deserve it, a rotten old hulk, hurting you, I ought to be kicked but good.”

  She stumbled over to the bed, fell there, dropped her head across his knees, and clutched his legs in agony. “It’s not you. You’re all right! It’s me, it’s what’s inside me, the way I can’t . . . can’t control——”

  He was stroking the black hair, murmuring to her.

  “—even when I know what it would do to them!”

  “Nobody was ever descended from a virgin. That includes you, baby.”

  “But she’s so clean, so innocent. So decent.”

  “She’s a goddamn snob. An oblivious social-climbing bitch. I knew her when. Goddammit, I grew up with her, I knew her when she still wet her pants.”

  He went on smoothing the tumbled black hair and by and by Molly lifted her head and scrubbed away the tears with the backs of her hands.

  He held her face between his hands. “This day is for you, baby. A day to be young in, to be in love in, to lie in the sun in. And don’t you forget it. Even the moralists in the pulpits don’t have all the answers. Quit thinking of yourself as dirt, as a criminal. Or I’ll kick your ass.”

  She tried to smile. “Come with us! We’ve found a secret cove!”

  “And you damned well keep it for yourselves,” he scolded, pretending to clout the soft chin. “Now get along. And drink a bottle of beer for me. Personally, I’ve got to get out and locate something stronger.”

  She stood up. “Are you going to drink today?”

  “Got to. It’s getting to where there’s no between-times. I’ll nip today, just enough to live.” He reached for his shoes. “You’ll never know what I’m talking about. And that’s a comfort.”

  Molly hurried to her own room for her purse and bathing suit. She had about fifty dollars left of the monthly allowance. Next year, she thought gratefully, she’d be teaching, she’d have her own money. She took a towel and her brief black suit, some sunburn lotion, and then went back downstairs, out the front door to avoid her mother’s questions. The big double-double garage doors fronted on the narrow alley. One door was shut, one up; the little maid’s car occupied the space vacated by her father’s business sedan. Her mother’s station wagon sat there shining in the sun. Molly pulled up the closed door. Her own bright new convertible sat side by side with Uncle Florian’s dilapidated Ford and showed up every neglected dent and rusted spot.

  She got behind the wheel, nursed the motor to life, and backed into the alley. At the first grocery she stopped for buns and wieners and mustard, paper plates, potato chips and beer. She scrounged an empty corrugated-cardboard box, stopped at a dispenser for ice. She packed the carton in the rear of the Ford with ice and beer.

  She drove up the peninsula to the mainland, to the intersection of the coast highway. He was lounging near the signals, in a patch of weeds, as if waiting to hitch a ride. She swerved in quickly, braked the car. He was smiling in at her, the sun a blaze in his pale hair. He yanked open the door and hopped in. He wore the same T-shirt, faded pants. He was barefooted. In spite of the openness of the place, the traffic containing God knew whose staring eyes, the brilliant light that shone in on them, he pulled her over and kissed her, hard.

  She clung to the wheel, not wanting to, wanting instead to surrender to him, melt against him.

  “We’ve got the whole day.”

  It made her think of what Uncle Florian had said, a day made for love, for being young, for lying somewhere in the sunlight.

  Just one day . . .

  One beautiful and never-to-be-forgotten day out of a lifetime of . . . what?

  She felt her hands tremble on the wheel, had to bite back the stinging rush of tears. To cover how she felt she swung the little car recklessly into the stream of traffic. There was the squeal of tires behind her, the savage squawk of a horn.

  Larry looked back casually. “Squirt in a beret, driving a Thunderbird. Doesn’t he know a woman driver when he sees one?”

  They climbed the hill to Corona del Mar, swept along in the stream of cars. The big bay lay behind and below them, and Molly threw a glance at it.

  “What a spot,” Larry said, his glance following hers.

  “I’ve lived here almost all my life. Winter and summer, though it’s not as fashionable in the winter.”

  “It’s not? Why?”

  “Oh . . . The big affairs are held in L.A. And the water’s not supposed to be nice. And a lot of the big yachts go into drydock. And only the natives remain to hold the fort.”

  “That’s bad? It sounds better to me than the summertime.”

  “It is.” She threw him a loving and mischievous look. “I was teasing.”

  “How come your mother stays here winters when it’s not the style?”

  “Dad’s business.”

  “He makes her stay?”

  “He has to be here. And if she went to L.A. it would have to be by herself. And a lone woman is a social leper.”

  “I don’t know much about society but I don’t think your mother would allow anybody to call her a leper.”

  She took a hand off the wheel to squeeze one of his. “Don’t let me forget, I’ve got to stop for air. Left front tire. Uncle Florian warned me.”

  But that was the last she thought of it.

  Curt opened his eyes. The sunlight was bright; he sensed how late it was. He crawled to his knees,
leaned into the window embrasure, and looked at the bay. The water lay blue and sparkling, speckled with boats, dinghies mostly. A few big yachts were anchored out in the water and beyond Lido Isle a majestic sail moved close to the main channel.

  He sat still, listening for some sounds from the other room. His mother had come home late. He’d heard her in the other room; she’d had someone with her—not a surprise. He had heard long murmurings, then finally cries and exhortations. The apartment below them was occupied by an elderly man who was totally deaf. A necessary dispensation; this was the first place they’d lived where they hadn’t been evicted at the shortest possible notice.

  By and by his mother and her unknown caller had begun to sing one of the dragging off-key hymns of her composing. His mother had sounded firm and exalted. The visiting masculine voice—something about it bookish and scholarly—had nevertheless stumbled with a tone that Curt recognized as embarrassment. The hymn finished, there had been further long colloquy.

  Then the prayers had taken on a loud and desperate urgency. His mother had shouted for help against temptation while Curt had lain wide-eyed, willing himself not to hear.

  There were thumps and bumps, as if his mother wrestled physically with the devil.

  Once years ago his mother had initiated Curt into these practices, keeping him up all night in the process. But a teacher had noticed the child’s inability to stay awake in school. There had been sessions with the juvenile authorities. Curt had been taken from his mother and placed in a foster home in the country near San Bernardino.

  A big childless redheaded woman had sheltered five of them on a dairy farm. She had had an enormous bosom, wore glasses, drank a little dago red before meals, and had given Curt and the other forlorn waifs a great warm bountiful love. Curt had helped with the dairying, as much as he could for his size, and had loved her in return, desperately. One thing alone had gnawed him. According to his mother’s teachings, the wine-drinking meant that Mrs. Reeder was headed straight for a fiery hell.

  After a time, through no wish or doing of his, he was reunited with his mother. She and he had moved to Newport Bay and she had done housework by the day for a living. Before that, according to his dim understanding, she had run some kind of church.

  He remembered a word from the juvenile court hearings: fanatic. He remembered two words overheard at school: crazy fanatic.

  He knew that both had been applied to his mother. He knew what averted eyes meant, and what tittering whispers meant, and when Edith Tomlinson had stared at him in adoring puppy love, he had been afraid that she was staring because his mother was a freak. And that made him one.

  Last night, after the cries and the wrestling noises had ended, other sounds no less betraying had taken their place. His mother had explained definitely, long before, that a thorough tussling with evil usually drove away bad desires. If it didn’t, if the bad desires persisted, God forgave the giving in.

  Curt scrambled from bed, went to the door, opened it a cautious crack. His mother lay on the bed-davenport, wrapped in a sheet. She was alone.

  In the morning light her figure was revealed, slim and long-legged. A mop of lustrous brown hair spread across the pillow. In spite of her age and the hard work she had done, she was a good-looking woman. Her skin was soft and clear, her features even. Her appearance in sleep always surprised Curt. She looked so gentle.

  He crept past on his bare feet, went into the little kitchen, and opened the refrigerator. He took out milk and bacon. The motor of the refrigerator went on with a sharp initial clatter and his mother stirred in the outer room.

  “Curt?”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  “What are you doing? Getting something to eat?” Her voice was mild, blurry with sleep. She yawned; he heard the couch creak as she stretched her body on it.

  “That’s right.”

  “Oh, lordy.” A moment of hesitation. “Did you hear me come in last night, Curt?”

  “No, Ma. No, I didn’t.” He was dropping bacon strips into a pan. His face had tightened, hardened.

  “I brought a friend up.” Another wait, as if she were testing him. “A good, nice religious man. We had a little talk.”

  “I didn’t hear you.”

  Apparently she decided to believe him. She got up, trailing the sheet, and went into the bathroom. Curt’s thoughts turned to what had happened last night, Arnold’s taking the letter from the box, and what the letter had said. Curt felt confused and scared. He felt that he ought to talk to someone about the contents of the letter, perhaps even mention his impression that someone had watched his window from the courtyard where Edie Tomlinson had lived.

  The connection between the watching face in the courtyard of Edie’s home and the mention of her name in the letter was something to puzzle over. Perhaps—the thought spurted through him—perhaps he and Arnold had been seen robbing the mailbox. Perhaps the writer had waited out of sight, to make sure the letter was taken up at the proper time. To make sure no one got hold of it except the postman.

  Of course Edie’s death had been an accident. Everyone knew that. So it must mean that the writer of the letter was crazy.

  He had confessed to murder, but he hadn’t really killed. He had not signed his name. He didn’t really want to be found.

  It must be some kind of gag, Curt decided. A joke on the cops.

  Curt stood staring into the pan of sizzling bacon. In the bathroom his mother was humming one of her hymns. It seemed to be the one he had heard her sing last night, but it was hard to tell; every one of his mother’s hymns sounded like “Moonlight Bay.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ARCHER SAT on the corner of his desk and mulled over a typewritten copy of the letter. The original with its envelope had gone to L.A. for examination by experts.

  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.

  Archer scratched the side of his jaw with his free hand, then pushed the rimless glasses higher on his nose, and frowned.

  He thought, maybe we haven’t paid enough attention to this particular paragraph.

  Of course he had pointed out its possible danger and significance to Matthews; but his real interest had been in the Tomlinson case and he had let that interest orient his interpretation of the letter.

  He could sympathize with Matthews’ viewpoint, too. By claiming the responsibility for these three deaths, this mocking bastard had implied a shocking stupidity on the part of the police. Matthews would go all out to reinforce the original conclusions.

  And while he’s doing that, Archer thought, and while I’m all wrapped up in what could have happened to Edith Tomlinson, this cookie could go ahead and do what he’s threatening here—add number four to his list—and whether he’s nuts and has just imagined that he murdered these kids or is smart enough to have a real motive and want to cover it, number four will be just as dead as Charles Carrol and Barbara Martin and Edith Tomlinson. And God knows you can’t get any deader.

  So what we’ll have to do—at the same time we go poking into the past—is to keep an eye out for the future, trying to figure out who it is that he. . . .

  Archer yanked his thoughts up short. How could they guess his concealed motive, the thing he meant to hide by this crazy confession? Even taking his story as a sort of cockeyed jumping-off place, how to know by what standard this nut judged whether people needed killing? And without that yardstick, where and at whom should they look?

  He’s got us running, Archer thought in a rage.

  He remembered little about the Carrol youngster. The Martin girl had been involved with a rich, spoiled boy who had gotten her pregnant and left her. That might seem to involve a moral judgment, provided the writer of the letter had had anything to do with her death.

  Which Archer couldn’t believe.

  Archer got off the desk and walked the floor and muttered to himself under his breath. By and by Matthews came in.<
br />
  Matthews was tense and furious. “I talked to Mrs. Carrol. It was quite a conversation.” There was a glitter to his eyes that Archer had never seen before.

  Archer waited flat-footed, feeling the sweat dry up on his face, feeling the moisture dry out under his tongue. He could sense it coming like a ton of toppling bricks, and he was choked with dread. How could they have been this stupid?

  Matthews stood in the middle of the room. His crew cut seemed suddenly grayer, dusty. “Mrs. Carrol never mentioned this before. But when her son ran across that drive, following the pup, the pup had been whistled to. It’s the whistle she just hadn’t bothered to talk about.” His breathing must have been audible in the next block.

  With his cottony mouth Archer managed: “Did she see anyone?”

  “No. There was just this whistle out of nowhere, or maybe out of some big shrubbery along the boundary of their yard. The pup had been trained to respond. Charles Carrol had worked hard teaching him.”

  Times like this, Archer thought numbly, I wonder why I ever even entertained the notion of being a cop.

  “Any reason given for failure to tell us?”

  “Shock. Shock and a belief at the time that it couldn’t have meant anything. There’s a path, kids go down to the bayside behind those shrubs. Neighbor kids. She’d always told herself that one of them must have whistled, trying to attract the attention of a pal already on the beach.”

  “And what does she think now?”

  Matthews licked his lips. “She’s been sick a lot since her son died. There was a nurse with her. The daughter—she’s just a kid, just a little older than the boy. The nurse and the kid chased me out. Mrs. Carrol was screaming.” Matthews’ face was grayer, like his hair, Archer noted; he was quite grayish around the mouth. “She was screaming that she’d always known it was murder. And why hadn’t we?”

  “Oh God.”

  After a moment Matthews looked around the place as if he couldn’t endure being in it. “I need some coffee. What I really need I’ll get when I go off duty.”