Wax Apple

by Donald E. Westlake

  In any case, I wanted to hear from some of the others, not exclusively from Walburn, so the next time there was a pause in his low-pitched polemic I said, “I don’t know about all that. I got caught too, you know. I got this arm out of it. But I don’t believe it was being aimed at me any more than I believe the weakened fire escape was aimed at Dewey. I don’t believe any of it was aimed at anybody. You never made a habit of going out on that fire escape, did you?” I didn’t want an answer to that, and rushed on, covering the couple of words he started to say in response. “The same with what happened to Bartholomew here,” I said. “In the first place, you wouldn’t have been the one to go down and open that closet door, he would. And in the second place, I bet he doesn’t think this whole thing was aimed at him.” I looked at Bartholomew. “Do you?”

  “I think it was just to hurt everybody,” Bartholomew said. “Not even to kill anybody, not that fellow Dewey or DeWitt or whatever his name was, not anybody. Just to hurt people. And whoever did it, I don’t think he cared who he hurt, just so he was hurting somebody.”

  Fredericks, happily, picked up the ball from there, saying, “You say, ‘Whoever did it,’ George. But didn’t Walter Stoddard do it?”

  Bartholomew hadn’t expected to be the center of attention, and his kleptomaniac’s heart was troubled by all the eyes focused on him. That made him even more rabbity and hesitant than usual, but at last he said, “I’m really not satisfied in my mind that he did, no.”

  “But he confessed,” Fredericks said.

  “I don’t know why he did that,” Bartholomew said slowly, “but I just don’t believe he went around arranging for people to have accidents. That just wouldn’t be like Walter.”

  I wished Fredericks would ask, at that point, who Bartholomew could see in that role, but Fredericks decided to take another tack, and at least for the moment I thought it best to lie back and be simply a part of the herd, rather than do any overt questioning of my own.

  The tack Fredericks took was to throw the question open to general discussion, saying, “Does anybody else agree with George? Anybody else think Walter Stoddard isn’t really guilty?”

  “Of course he’s guilty,” Rose Ackerson said irritably. “He said he was guilty, didn’t he?”

  Molly Schweitzler made a small sound in her throat and suddenly looked very panicky, probably because of the harshness in Rose’s voice, but Rose turned and patted her arm, murmuring at her to reassure her, and Molly settled down again, chewing, her expression vacant. I remembered how tough she’d been at the therapy session two days ago, and it was hard to think of this as the same woman.

  Marilyn Nazarro called me back from contemplation of Molly again, saying, “But he must be guilty, mustn’t he? Why would anybody say they were guilty if they weren’t?”

  Beth Tracy, the sexual-hysteric, said, “Maybe he wants to be punished for something else he did. There’s a lot of that around, you know.” As though she were talking of the flu.

  Fredericks jumped again. “That’s interesting, Beth. Is that what you think happened? Do you think Walter’s innocent, too?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I really haven’t thought about it at all. But I guess he must have done it, mustn’t he?”

  Bob Gale jumped aboard, saying, “Why? You just said maybe he confessed because he wants to be punished for something else, and now you say you think he’s guilty.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” she said irritably. “The police believe him, don’t they?” She turned to me, bringing the whole thing unfortunately full circle. “What do you think, Mr. Tobin?”

  I hesitated, but there was nothing to be gained by lying, and maybe something to be gained by telling the truth, so I said, “I think he’s innocent.”

  That wasn’t the answer she’d expected. Since I was sitting right beside her she had to half-turn in her seat to get a really good look at me, which she did. She said, “Why do you say that?”

  I could only watch one person at a time, and now the obvious one for me to watch was Beth Tracy. I hoped Fredericks and Bob Gale were watching some of the others. I said, “Because the guilty person left me a note saying so.”

  She gaped at me. I made a fast—trying for the appearance of casualness—turn of the head, to see everybody but Molly Schweitzler looking at me, the same look of astonishment on every face. George Bartholomew, next to me on the other side, said, “Did you show it to the police?”

  “Not yet,” I told him.

  Marilyn Nazarro, across the table, said, “Why not? If you have proof that Walter Stoddard is innocent, shouldn’t you give it to the police?”

  I turned to her and said, “I know Stoddard didn’t do it, and I can prove it. I also know who did do it, but I can’t prove it. I’m hoping that person—”

  Beth Tracy exclaimed, “You know who it is?”

  I didn’t, but it seemed like a worthwhile bluff to try. I told Beth, “It’s one of the people in this room. But I can’t prove which one, so if I go to the police they’ll have to come back and question everybody, search everybody’s room, maybe be tough with people again the way they were before. There’s only one guilty person in this room, but if I can’t prove what I know to the police they’ll have to treat all seven people here as though they might be guilty.”

  “You’re making all that up,” Rose Ackerson snapped. “It doesn’t make any sense, and you know it.”

  I turned around again, to meet Rose’s angry glare. “What do you mean, it doesn’t make sense?”

  “If you know so much,” she said, “why not go to the police? Tell them, ‘I know it’s this person or that person, but I can’t prove it.’ But if you know it why can’t you prove it?”

  “Knowing and proving aren’t always the same thing,” I said. “I was hoping I could convince the guilty person to go to the police”—I was stuck for a second, not knowing whether to say ‘himself’ or ‘herself,’ and paused lamely, then went on—“and make a full confession without having to be forced into it.”

  Rose gave me a look of angry scorn. “Now, why would anybody do that?”

  “Because the only thing that will happen to the guilty party,” I said, “is that he or she,” solving it that way, “will get sent back to the place he just got out of. The guilty party won’t go to jail or the electric chair or anything like that.”

  “Just back to the asylum,” Rose said savagely. “Oh, that isn’t bad at all, is it?”

  “It’s better than being dead,” I told her. “Like Dewey.” And had the satisfaction of seeing her eyes slip from mine for just a second.

  But then she was back, as strong as ever. “Oh, this is just talk,” she said. “If you know all there is to know, just say to the police, ‘That one’s guilty, put the pressure on her first. Or on him first. Let everybody else go until you’re done with this one.’ Why couldn’t you do it that way?”

  “I could,” I said. “I’d rather not, that’s all.”

  “I think you’re just full of hot air,” she insisted, still pushing me. “I don’t believe you got any note, I don’t believe you know anything. You’re just fishing, that’s all, talking mysterious and hoping somebody will fall over and say, ‘Oh, I did it! Oh, you got me!’ But it isn’t going to happen, because Walter Stoddard is guilty and that’s all there is to it.”

  She’d been getting louder and louder toward the end of that speech, and unnoticed beside her Molly Schweitzler’s face had developed deepening alarm, until all at once she whimpered, a small but terrible sound, unnerving, not entirely human. It shocked all of us, and Rose forgot me at once, turning around to console Molly again, to pat her arms and murmur to her, and Molly’s face gradually relaxed again.

  I continued to stare at the two of them, baffled by Rose’s manner. She was so belligerent, so angry, so determined that there should be no question about Walter Stoddard’s guilt, and yet at the same time she kept challenging me to call in the police. Was she guilty, and defiant until the end? Was s
he afraid Molly was guilty? But in either case, her own guilt or her fear or suspicion of Molly’s guilt, I should think she’d want to sit pat until she found out for sure whether or not I really knew as much as I claimed. If she were guilty she would have to know she had sent me the note, and how could she be sure I was lying about any other part of it? Unless there was some way for her to be absolutely sure I was bluffing, it made no sense for her to be the guilty one and at the same time challenging me. And how could she be sure?

  “Mr. Tobin?”

  Startled, I looked around, and saw everyone looking at me. The voice had been George Bartholomew’s, and now I realized he’d been asking me a question, but I had no idea what the question was. I turned to him and said, “I’m sorry, my mind was wandering. Would you repeat that, please?”

  “I said, it seems to me if the guilty person was going to confess, they would have done it when Walter was led away. Once they decided to let somebody else pay for their crimes, I should think they’d be hardened to the kind of appeal you’re trying to make. Don’t you think so?”

  I was afraid he was right, and said so, adding, “I was just hoping for the best. I thought, in this situation, in the therapy session here, the guilty one might realize the truth was the best thing after all.”

  Marilyn Nazarro said, “Mr. Tobin, are you telling the truth?” She was sitting next to Rose Ackerson, who was devoting all her attention now to Molly, and in a way Marilyn had picked up Rose’s fallen standard, except that she was carrying it in a far quieter and more civilized way.

  I told her, “I did get a note from the guilty person, who is one of the people in this room. I’ll tell you that for a fact, I’ll swear to it, and Doctor Fredericks will tell you I’m telling the truth. I don’t want to say any more than that.”

  They all turned to look at Fredericks, who said, “It’s true enough. Mr. Tobin just told you the true facts. I hadn’t thought he was going to bring them out in the open like this, I’m not sure it was the wisest thing to do, but it is the truth.”

  Donald Walburn abruptly muttered, “They’ll stick together, Marilyn, don’t believe either of them. When you find people sticking together, they’re always up to something to get somebody else. Believe me, I know.”

  I didn’t want us to get back into a discussion of Donald Walburn’s paranoia again, and luckily neither did Doctor Fredericks, who said, “Marilyn, what made you accept Walter’s confession at face value?”

  She was surprised by the question, but no one else filled the silence she left, so after half a minute she said, “I don’t know. I suppose I just took it for granted.”

  “Because the police believed him.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “But the police don’t know Walter, and we do. Shouldn’t our opinion supersede that of the police?”

  Beth Tracy said, “But they’re specialists, aren’t they? I mean, just like you’re a specialist, so we believe you when you talk about psychiatry and things like that.”

  The conversation spiraled slowly from that point, Fredericks and Beth and Marilyn turning the question of belief and knowledge and specialism around and around, and I settled back to think things out. I looked at the faces around me and compared them with the attitudes they’d been showing, compared the attitudes with the reality of the situation and the kind of crimes we’d been dealing with, and found myself slowly sinking into a morass of possible motivations and unlikely exposure methods, and just as I was about to give up in disgust I saw a glimmer of light. I saw a possible answer to a secondary question, and that led me to another answer, and then another answer, and all at once I saw the thing neat and clean and clear.

  Now all that was left was to prove it.

  25

  THE HOUR WAS NEARING its end, and nothing more of any value had happened. I’d bided my time, waiting for the right opportunity, and it came at last as a result of something Bob Gale said.

  It was a speech he made, actually, a brief but impassioned speech about protecting ourselves, protecting our pride and self-respect from the ugly bluntness of the local police. This led directly to a split down the middle of the group, between those who agreed with Bob’s estimation of the police, and those who thought the police excellent specialists who could be relied upon to do their job well, regardless of an occasional incident like the beating up of O’Hara and Merrivale—and hadn’t O’Hara and Merrivale brought that on themselves in the first place? Bob and Beth Tracy and George Bartholomew were all on the side of believing the local police inefficient and brutal. Donald Walburn and Rose Ackerson and Marilyn Nazarro were of the opinion, in differing ways and for differing reasons, that the police were basically good and efficient. The debate waxed hot for a while, and both Fredericks and I let it go, since impassioned people sometimes say more than they intend. But when I judged the peak of the argument had been passed I took the first handy pause in which to say, “We haven’t heard from Molly yet. What do you think of the police, Molly?”

  She responded to her name by looking at me, but she didn’t respond to the question at all. Her expression was mostly blank, with vague worry overlapping it like a thin cloud layer.

  I said, “What do you think, Molly?”

  Rose Ackerson said, “Leave her alone. She doesn’t feel like talking today.”

  “But you were doing so well the other day, Molly,” I said. “You’d decided you weren’t going to take any more cruelty from anybody, remember? You were going to fight back at last. No more overeating, no more self-pity, you were going to fight back. Remember saying that?”

  The look of worry was growing less vague. “I don’t want to talk today,” she said. Her voice was frailer, more childlike, than it had been before.

  “I can understand that, Molly,” I said. “Maybe you can get Rose to write a note for you, if you don’t feel like doing your own talking.”

  Rose snapped, “What are you trying to do? We’re in front of witnesses, you know, there is such a thing as libel. You’d better be careful what you say.”

  I looked at Rose, and said, “You kept challenging me to prove that I knew who the guilty one was, and that confused me. Unless you could be completely sure I was bluffing, you couldn’t be guilty and want to challenge me. And how could you be completely sure I was bluffing?”

  “Just from looking at you,” she said, angry and sneering. “A man who’s been a failure and a four-flusher at everything all his life, what else would you know how to do but bluff?”

  “That’s a good reason,” I said, “but not good enough to make you completely sure of yourself. But I suddenly remembered something I’d said, about one person out of the seven in this room being guilty, and then I realized what the truth had to be.”

  She pointed a trembling finger at me, trembling not from fear but from barely restrained rage. “I’ve warned you about libel. I’m not going to warn you again.”

  “The truth,” I insisted, “is that two people were guilty, and if I didn’t know that, obviously I didn’t know anything. That table that collapsed on you two was not a rigged accident. It was the first of the accidents, and it caused the others, but it was not—”

  “I’ll have you in jail!” Rose shrieked. She was on her feet, and if Molly hadn’t been sitting there helpless, Rose would have stalked from the room. But she couldn’t leave Molly behind. “You can’t say these terrible things!”

  “I can and I will. When that table collapsed on you two and everybody laughed, you both hated them. Molly hated everybody here, because they had laughed, and they became for her everybody in her whole life who had ever laughed at her and got away with it. And you hated them for what they’d done to Molly. Not because they laughed at you, you’re too strong and self-sufficient to be affected by something like that, but because they laughed at Molly.”

  “I suppose you and Walter Stoddard have some sort of homosexual relationship,” she said, trying now to switch to the haughtily superior. “It shouldn’t be hard for the polic
e to get to the bottom of all this.”

  “No, it shouldn’t. I know Molly insisted on that note to me when I broke my arm, because after all I hadn’t been here when everybody laughed, I wasn’t one of the laughers and therefore I shouldn’t be punished, and I know you wrote the note, just as I know she insisted on the note about Walter Stoddard being innocent and you wrote that one, but other than that I don’t know which of you is responsible for what. I don’t know which of you first suggested that you give other people accidents and see how they’d laugh about that, but it doesn’t really matter, does it? You did it all together, one doing the sabotage and the other standing watch. As Donald Walburn said, when people stick together they’re up to something. And what you two were up to was paying the whole world back for the lifetime of indignities Molly had suffered.”

  “Who would believe such foolishness?” she demanded, but as she looked angrily around the table I saw her face change. I didn’t look away from her, but I could guess the expressions she was seeing on the faces around her, and they wouldn’t be encouraging, because this was the truth, and it had the feel of truth at last, and people can tell when things have the feel of truth.

  I said, “Molly.”

  “Leave her alone!”

  Fredericks said, in a voice so shockingly soft it was worse than any yell, “Rose, sit down. Be quiet.”

  “Molly,” I said.

  She looked at me, reluctant, wary, childlike.

  I said, “Molly, Frank DeWitt never laughed at you.”