“You mean he let himself be drowned?”
“No. We fished him out alive five minutes after we got you and the girl ashore. He didn’t make much sense at first. Then he gave us a statement admitting his guilt in murdering Irene Sloade and Paul Sloade, and I guess we were a little careless about him. He grabbed a gun off one of the officers and shot himself through the mouth.” The lieutenant looked at the district attorney, who nodded, and Stone drew a deep breath. “Lila Griswold is in the hospital, and according to all reports, she’ll be perfectly all right in another day or two. No harm done there. Her boyfriend, Robbie, is back in the V.A. hospital. They think he’s hopeless, there.”
The district attorney cleared his throat. “My office is drawing up indictments against Monte Bachore in the matter of that old murder you claim you witnessed, Mr. Carmody. According to your own story, you were an accessory to the old murder—however unwillingly you may have participated. According to law, you are equally guilty with Mr. Bachore. Moreover, you withheld evidence in the case for quite some time. Normally, we would take a rather serious view of all this, but there are certain extenuating circumstances…” The D.A.’s voice drifted off for a moment. “I’ll be frank with you, Mr. Carmody. We need your help. We’ve been trying to rid society of Monte Bachore’s activities for some time, and this is our first real opportunity for an air-tight case against him. Since the other man involved in this murder you speak of, Lou Cannon, is long dead, you are the only witness we have who can help us win the case. On that basis, I think we can safely let you go on your own recognizance.”
“What am I charged with?” Carmody asked.
“Nothing. I have been in touch with the governor, and my office will not prefer any charges against you. We could hold you as a material witness to all this, but if you agree not to leave the county—”
“I’ll agree to that,” Carmody said.
“Then I think we understand each other.”
“Do you mean I’m free to go?”
“So long as you appear at the trials.”
“I’ll be there,” Carmody said.
The D.A. smiled. “I’m sure of it.”
It took a little time to get used to the idea of his freedom. He had lived for so long with the thought that when he finally got rid of his burden he would face an endless time of gray walls and prison routine, that now he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. It was a little after noon when he left the courthouse. His plum-colored Ford that Monte had given him was in the police parking lot, and one of the state troopers gave him the keys. Carmody debated whether to refuse the car or not, and then told himself he had no reason not to use it unless he wanted to be foolish about it, and he drove to the office of the realtor who had rented him the beach house. It took only half an hour to get his lease extended for the winter, and when he was through there he drove to the beach.
Nothing seemed changed about the Victorian monstrosity except the new feeling of emptiness in it. Carmody changed his clothes and showered and shaved and then showered again. He sat down at the old piano in the living room and ran his fingers over the keys and nothing stirred inside him. He would have to write or call Dunning’s partner, he thought, and get the scores back from the New York office. He would have to start all over again, and a doubt crept into him about the music he might write and he felt haunted. Suddenly he couldn’t stay in the house and he went outside and walked down the shore to Harry’s place.
There were only a few people on the veranda facing the blue, sparkling sea, and none of them paid any attention to him. He nodded to fat Harry behind the bar and chose his usual table in the back room near the piano and after a moment Harry came over to him and said, “I’ve been waiting for you to show up. I heard you’re in the clear, Billy-o.”
“More or less,” Carmody said.
“Have you seen Martha yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“She’s over at the hotel.”
“All right,” Carmody said. “Don’t push me, Harry.”
“Aren’t you going to see her? She’s been around here twice this morning, looking for you.”
“It’s a waste of time.”
“Billy-o, what’s gotten into you? Maybe you ought to go over to the box and start playing again. You’re not going to stop making music, are you?”
“I don’t know,” Carmody said. “I’d like some lunch.”
Harry went away, looking baffled. Carmody sat in the sunlight by the window, watching the people on the yacht club pier and the boats in the peaceful water and the big hotel with its tennis courts and cottages and private beach. He looked at his hands on the white tablecloth and saw they were trembling. He rubbed the fingers of his left hand and then the fingers of his right. It was all over, he told himself. Ended. Finished. Go on and make music. That’s what Harry wants you to do. Everything else was just something built up out of the moment, a distortion of emotions like the taut stretches of a rubber band.
He got up and went to the piano.
His first few notes faltered, searching for something he had lost. Groping, he pushed on with it, hearing the chords and melody with his ears and his mind, but feeling nothing of it deep inside him where it used to bubble like molten gold. He told himself he was free now, that he had been running from nothing for all these years, that he had paid a debt to Lucas Deegan and that Deegan could sleep dreamlessly now for all eternity. Forget the past now, he told himself. You have to start all over again, and it won’t be easy but at least make the start. His fingers moved across the keyboard with a little more facility, picking out a rhythm from one of his old scores, improvising a few bars to span the gap into something new that suddenly seemed to come out of him without any deliberate summoning. A few people drifted off the veranda into the back room to listen to him play. Then somebody sat down on the piano bench beside him and he saw it was Martha.
She wore a white silk skirt and a blue jacket and had a matching blue scarf wound through her wheat-colored hair. Her face looked a little thinner, and her eyes were enormous as she smiled at him. It was a tentative smile, quickly evanescent.
“Hello, Bill. Weren’t you going to come around to see me?”
“Sure,” he said.
“You owe me a ride and dinner at Montauk Point.”
“Tonight,” he said.
“Don’t you want to, Bill?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t think you do. Is anything wrong? I talked to Jordan, the lawyer I sent to help you. He said the authorities are taking everything you did here into consideration on that old matter, and no charges will be pressed against you. I should think that would make you feel very happy.”
“It does.”
“But you’re not happy about me, are you?”
“Look, Martha—”
“Are you going to be stupid like Mark?” she asked.
“Mark?”
“Think about it,” she said.
She got up and walked away. Carmody played a few more notes and dropped his hands from the piano keyboard and sat there looking at the water through the window and seeing the bright hot sun on the white beach and the curling white breakers that crashed and muttered beyond the high dunes. Suddenly he got up and walked out across the veranda and looked up and down the beach for Martha. He saw her far down toward the water’s edge and he began walking after her and then he started to run. When he caught up to her he took her arm and slowed down to a walk again. The sea was very loud, close to the hissing tongues of foam that licked up on the smooth sand. The sun was warm, golden as the sudden lifted feeling he got when he looked at her.
As if there had been no interruption, Martha said, “I know how you feel about things right now, Bill. You hinted about it once before. Your career as a composer is just beginning, and you’re too proud to ask me to share your struggles with you just because I happen to be a wealthy girl. Mark Dunning was proud too. He was in love with Irene but he made the same mistake you’re making, and he
doomed them both to unhappiness and tragedy. I think we ought to have learned something from all that happened. I love you, Bill. And I think you love me.”
“Yes,” he said. “I love you.”
“Then is anything else important?”
“No, nothing,” he said.
The sun shone with warm beneficence on the stretch of lonely, wind-swept beach. Carmody stopped walking and Martha halted beside him and he turned and took her in his arms and kissed her, and in that moment he heard the sounds of the sea and the wind and the echo of many voices singing of all the joys and sorrows in the world, and as he held Martha in his arms he felt and heard all the music of today ahead of all the tomorrows that were to be.
Say It & Murder Page 17