Verdict Suspended Page 12

  On the beach below, Jaime struggled to his feet. A natural slope veered under the overhang and ended against a pile of sea-blackened rocks. At high tide the area would have been inundated; but the tide was out and the sand washed smooth. He clawed at the rocks, felt a sharp pain, and looked at his hand. Blood. He looked down. The impact of his rolling body had dislodged something buried deep in the sand. He picked it up, stumbled a few steps down the beach, and stared up at the balcony.

  “Greta, I found the rest of the glass!”

  His words came back to him, unanswered. Greta was gone. The balcony was deserted.

  Chapter 12

  There were two roads from Sheilah’s house. One, the main entrance, was paved with black asphalt and curved gently through a cypress grove to the highway. The other was gravel. It skirted the ridge and met the highway about halfway to Steve’s house. This was the service road, the road Greta took when she ran out to meet Steve. She was breathless when she reached the highway. She searched the road anxiously. There was no sign of Steve. She started walking in the direction of his house. She’d gone a dozen yards when the sound of an approaching car turned her about. It was a small sedan. It stopped. The driver, a middle-aged man in tweeds, leaned forward and opened the door.

  “Miss Muldoon,” he called cheerfully, “may I drop you somewhere?”

  She stared at him curiously. “Do I know you?” she asked.

  “You will,” he said, “if you ride with me. You seem in a hurry.”

  He looked harmless, and it was such a short way. She got into the sedan.

  “Do you know where Mr. Quentin lives?” she asked.

  “Steve Quentin? That’s exactly where I’m headed.” He started up the sedan again—with difficulties. “It’s a rental,” he explained. “I always have trouble with rentals for the first fifty miles.” Then he smiled. “My name’s Howard. I’m a biologist.”

  It was too late for playing games. There was too much at stake. Greta stared at him soberly.

  “You’re Dr. Curry,” she said. “You’re the third psychiatrist.”

  She saw his smile fade. His hands tightened on the steering wheel.

  “Who told you that?” he demanded.

  “My husband—Jaime Dodson.”

  “And who told him—Mr. Quentin?”

  “No. Dr. Pitman at the hospital…. Dr. Curry, why are you here? It’s to watch Jaime, isn’t it? It’s because of something that happened when he was under narcosis.”

  “Your husband has been busy,” Curry mused. “Now let me ask a question, since you seem so adept at answering your own. Why were you hurrying down the highway just now?”

  “To meet Steve. He telephoned—”

  “Where?”

  “At the house—Sheilah’s house.”

  “You were in that house?”

  “Yes. With my husband—”

  They reached the turnoff to Steve’s house. Curry braked the sedan to a stop without making a full turn.

  “Is he still there—alone?” he demanded.

  “No,” Greta said. “He went off the balcony. Then Steve called—” She had to explain everything then. Exactly why she’d gone to the house, exactly how she had found Jaime. About the glass—

  Curry was particularly interested in the glass. “You say your husband found a fragment. Where?”

  “In the door sill—the sliding door leading to Sheilah’s balcony,” Greta said. “That’s when Jaime leaped up onto the railing and jumped down to the beach. I was terrified. Then the telephone rang and it was Steve telling me to come away if I loved Jaime…. That Jaime was going to learn something about himself that he didn’t know. What did he mean, Dr. Curry?”

  “Why don’t we find Mr. Quentin and ask him?” Curry said.

  Steve should have been on the road going to Sheilah’s house. Now they were driving to his own house and there was still no sign of him. Curry parked. Greta leaped out of the car and ran to the front door. She rang the bell. No response. She followed the path back toward the cottage and cut over to the service entrance. She called. No answer. The door was open. By this time Curry was with her.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “Steve was going to meet me.”

  “Let’s housebreak,” Curry suggested.

  They entered through the service area. It opened into the kitchen. A chopping board and knife and a head of lettuce indicated recent occupation, but Trench was nowhere to be found. They progressed through the house to Steve’s study. The binoculars were still on the window ledge.

  “Steve said he’d been watching the house,” Greta explained. “He saw Jaime jump—”

  Curry picked up the glasses and focused on the point. He stared at the house for some moments before putting the glasses down. “Are you sure it was Steve’s voice on the telephone?” he asked.

  “Steve’s? Of course!”

  “Or did he say, ‘This is Steve’?”

  Greta was confused. “I don’t remember,” she said. “Dr. Curry—what’s happening? Where’s Steve?”

  “I don’t know,” Curry said, “but I’m going up to that house!”

  He moved quickly toward the door. Greta blocked his way out.

  “You have to tell me,” she insisted. “What’s Jaime doing? Why are you afraid?”

  “Jaime’s trying to get free.”

  “But he’s free now! He’s not under sentence!”

  “Not a court sentence. But I think he’s trying himself.”

  Greta was very pale. She clung to Curry’s arm as if it were attached to God. “What did he tell you at the hospital?” she demanded. “I’m his wife. I have a right to know!”

  Dr. Curry gently loosened the grip on his arm, and then he explained why he was afraid—and why they must both be afraid for Jaime.

  “He told me that he killed his sister,” he said.

  Jaime continued to shout, but Greta didn’t return to the balcony. The surf, he decided, was too noisy. He ran down the beach to where a familiar footpath snaked up the ridge. He climbed up, carefully holding the broken glass before him. The path crested fifty yards from Sheilah’s house and cut back. The front door stood open—wide. Puzzled, Jaime stepped inside.

  “Greta,” he called, “are you here?”

  The house was a pavilion of light. The search for the missing glass hadn’t left a switch unturned. Light in a room without life. Light on the floor near the mantel. Light on the bar. Light glittering on the broken glass in his hand. Then, sharply, something metallic fell to the floor in the kitchen.

  “Greta?”

  Jaime followed the sound and pushed open the door. Steve was kneeling in the center of the floor. He came slowly to his feet holding a meat cleaver in one hand.

  “Jaime,” he said. “You gave me a scare.”

  “What are you doing with that?” Jaime demanded.

  Steve glanced at the cleaver and smiled nervously. “It fell off the wall rack. There—see?”

  There was a wall rack for implements: knives, ladles, a tenderizing mallet … Steve continued to hold the cleaver.

  “How did you get here?” Jaime asked.

  “I saw the lights in the roof,” Steve said. “I know what you’ve been doing, Jaime. I heard you with Greta.”

  “You were here all the time?”

  “I was here before Greta came. When you went into Sheilah’s room I got to the phone box here in the kitchen and rang. When Greta answered I told her I was calling from my house. I sent her there to meet me…. Jaime, you should have taken my advice. You should have left town.”

  Jaime held up the piece of broken glass. “So I wouldn’t find this, Steve?”

  “It’s only a piece of glass.”

  “It’s a piece of a highball glass Sheilah received on the day of her death. There were eight of them. Now there are seven. Nobody used any of them, Steve, except this one. And I remembered, when I found a sliver of it in the doorway to Sheilah’s balcony, that Steve likes scotch … without ice.” />
  Jaime watched Steve’s eyes. They were careful; but they weren’t afraid. “You were here the night Sheilah died,” Jaime said. “You were here before the others came … with Sheilah … alone. Why, Steve? And why did you leave over the balcony? What was your hurry?”

  Jaime hurled the questions at Steve; but Steve remained tensely quiet.

  “I didn’t want to be seen,” he said.

  Jaime’s eyes brightened. “Then you admit you were here! But you never told anyone…. And you didn’t want to be seen! By whom—the prowler?”

  “No,” Steve said quietly. “By the man who killed Sheilah…. Jaime, listen to me. I know what you’re going through. I know what you’re fighting—but I’m the man who went into a courtroom and defended you. I saved your life. I could do that because I didn’t tell anyone that I was here—with Sheilah, alone, shortly before her death. If I had told that I would have had to tell everything.” Steve still held the cleaver. He never took his eyes from Jaime’s face. “Is that what you want to hear,” he asked, “everything?”

  “I want to know why you were here!” Jaime said.

  “I came to see Sheilah before dinner because I knew what she was planning to do. She’d called me and told me to start proceedings to terminate your partnership. She said she had proof of embezzlement. She wanted an airtight case set up. On the day of the dinner she called again. She told me to come and bring the necessary papers. She said you would sign—on her terms.

  “I knew what you and Greta were walking into when you came to dinner that night. I came to plead with Sheilah for reconsideration. I was too late.”

  “Too late?”

  “Yes. I came up the service road—by foot. I didn’t want Sheilah to hear me coming and get her defenses up. On the way I saw Trench go past in the station wagon. I stepped off the road. He didn’t see me…. I came on to the house and entered through the back door. I heard a car drive away. I went into the living room and found Sheilah getting up from the floor. Her cheek was cut. She told me you were there and threw a glass at her. She was furious. I tried to talk to her. I poured myself a drink … tried to keep the conversation casual and light, but Sheilah was adamant.” Steve’s voice broke. He was struggling with a memory. “She had too much responsibility,” he said, “and she worked too hard. She thought you let her down.”

  “The crown was getting heavy,” Jaime said bitterly.

  “Yes, I suppose it was. She needed help, but she didn’t trust anyone. I followed her into the bedroom, pleading. I said Greta might be a stabilizing influence—and as for the money, weren’t there things more important than money? I won’t repeat what she answered…. Then we both heard a car coming up the drive. Sheilah went out to meet her guests, but I couldn’t face it. I took the coward’s way out, Jaime. I went over the balcony.”

  “But you came back.”

  “Later, yes. I knew I was wrong. I had to be here. You know what I came back to.”

  Steve was logical. Steve explained everything. Steve was a lawyer. But Jaime still didn’t understand.

  “But you never told anyone!” he protested. “In the courtroom—you left that forty-five minutes wide open!”

  “And saved your life with them!” Steve said. “I told you, Jaime, we heard a car coming up the drive. Sheilah went out to meet her guests, but we both know whose car it was. There’s only one like it on the Point. Two carburetors—dual exhausts … It was your car, Jaime. The one you wrecked at Hanson’s Pier a short time later…. There was no prowler.”

  “Then why,” Jaime asked, “don’t I remember killing Sheilah? I remember everything else—the quarrel, going up to the Center … I think I remember coming back. But, Steve, no matter how hard I try—and I know it’s true—I can’t remember killing her!”

  “There’s a reason for that,” Steve said. “The doctors explained it to me at the hospital. It has something to do with the brain—a cerebral insult.”

  “What?”

  “A blow on the head—such as the one you suffered when you smashed into that road barrier—shocks the brain into a subnormal condition. Anything experienced immediately preceding the accident is wiped out … gone.”

  “Is that why you hired Dr. Curry?”

  Steve didn’t seem surprised. Jaime was beginning to realize that he’d been very carefully watched.

  “Yes,” Steve said. “It was an outside chance, but I thought we might break the block with narcosis.”

  “And … did you?”

  “Yes. You confessed, Jaime. You told us how you killed Sheilah.”

  It was quiet then. Steve let Jaime absorb what he already knew. He let him fit it to his mind until the anger welled up again.

  “And you didn’t say a thing!” Jaime charged. “We went through that grueling inquest and you led everyone to believe I was innocent.”

  “You are innocent,” Steve said, “legally. I did what I had to do, Jaime. When you came out from under the influence of the drug your mind was where it had been before the experiment. You remembered nothing of the confession. It couldn’t be admitted as evidence in court even if you had been charged with Sheilah’s murder…. Jaime, show yourself a little mercy! You’ve taken the guilt out and looked at it. Now, for God’s sake, put it away again! You can’t bring Sheilah back, but you can destroy all the good left in you—and you can destroy Greta.”

  “What do you expect me to do—forget murder?”

  “We all have to forget things … even murder. Will you give me the glass now?”

  The glass. Jaime turned it about in his hands. He brushed a crust of dry sand from the monogram indentation. D for Dodson. S. and J. Partnership dissolved. He could feel Steve’s eyes watching him, and so he turned abruptly, opened the cupboard door, and put the broken glass on the shelf. He closed the door and faced Steve.

  Steve relaxed. He placed the cleaver on the table top. “I think we should get out of here now,” he said.

  “Where are we going?” Jaime asked.

  “To see Dr. Curry. He can help you.”

  It was ridiculous. Nobody, Jaime knew, could help him. He had opened doors that couldn’t be closed. But he said: “All right, I’ll go.”

  He followed Steve back through the brightly lighted living room that was now like a deserted stage. It was all unreal. Nobody could forget murder. As he passed the mantel, Steve’s foot kicked something on the floor. He stooped and picked up the poker.

  “I used it re-enacting the crime,” Jaime explained.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “In the fire tool stand…. It’s not the one that killed Sheilah, is it?”

  “Of course not. That poker’s state evidence. Trench must have replaced it.”

  “Trench should have cleared the bar,” Jaime suggested.

  Steve looked at him sharply. For all his power of persuasion, he was at nerve ends too. He put the poker back in the stand and looked up to see Jaime staring fixedly at the carpet. “That’s where Sheilah’s body fell,” he said, “there … on the floor. The blood was still on her face from the place where my glass cut her.”

  “Jaime, leave it alone!” Steve ordered.

  Jaime didn’t answer. All of his senses were sharpening, as if the volume had been brought to full power and the picture to full focus. He walked with Steve into a late-autumn dusk streaked with bright crimson lines of leftover sundown. They crossed the service yard and got into Jaime’s convertible. By silent consent, Steve took the wheel. He followed the service road to the highway and then turned left, away from the village.

  “You’re going the wrong way,” Jaime said. “Dr. Curry lives in the Patterson house.”

  “I want to drive awhile before I talk to anyone,” Steve said. “We both need to relax. I suppose you think this has been easy for me. I have a conscience too.”

  “Is that why you wanted me to leave the Point? To make things easier for your conscience?”

  Driving didn’t relax Steve. His hands were tight on the stee
ring wheel. “I wanted you to leave because it’s the only sensible thing to do. You can’t live in that house again. Get rid of it, Jaime. Take Greta and start a new life …”

  “I can’t,” Jaime said. “I’ve already told her the truth.”

  “Then tell her you were lying! Tell her you had a nervous breakdown—hallucinations—anything! She’ll believe you. She wants to believe. She may even make you believe. They tell me love does wonderful things.”

  There was a tinge of bitterness in Steve’s voice that had to mean something. Jaime was learning many things, quickly. There wasn’t much time.

  “You were in love with Sheilah, weren’t you?” he said.

  “I suppose I was … once,” Steve admitted. “I couldn’t keep up with her. No one could.”

  “But if you loved her—if you ever loved any woman—you must know that I can’t go back to Greta. You shouldn’t have protected me.”

  “I’m the family lawyer.”

  “Civil … not criminal. You could have let me go to trial and die.”

  “Jaime, don’t be melodramatic!”

  “I’m serious. That’s what I wanted to do when I smashed into that barrier. It was daylight, Steve, and I hadn’t been drinking.”

  “Why go back to that?”

  They were climbing now. They were going up where the cypresses were splintered and wind-blown; and where the hungry mouth of the sea chewed at the rocks far below. They could climb for several miles before the road began the descent to Hanson’s Pier.

  “It’s the way out,” Jaime said.

  He watched Steve’s face in the driving mirror. The words shocked and held him. He didn’t answer.

  “Greta’s a young woman,” Jaime added. “She’ll find someone else and forget me.”

  “Jaime,” Steve said, “what do you think would have happened if that confession could have been used in court? Sheilah’s death was provoked—not premeditated. No jury would bring in a death sentence.”

  “But I’m the jury,” Jaime said. “Stop the car, Steve.”

  “Don’t be an idiot!”

  “If you don’t, I will!”

  Steve’s eyes, in the mirror, brightened with danger. His foot pressed down on the accelerator. The car swung wildly around a curve, headed toward the sea, and swung back. Jaime grabbed the steering wheel and for timeless seconds they battled for control. He kicked Steve’s foot off the accelerator and held it back until the car lost speed. Steve took one hand from the wheel and reached into his coat pocket, and at that instant Jaime reached past him and slammed the door handle with his fist. The door swung open. There was a wild look of disbelief on Steve’s face as he slid backward into space. He made one frantic grab at the wheel with his free hand, missed, and watched the pull of his own weight tear loose the grip of the other hand. It was over in a matter of seconds. Jaime was too busy righting the car to chance more than a glance in the driving mirror. He saw Steve sprawled on the pavement, his hands and feet clawing at the air like a small dog in play. An instant later the car swung around a curve and Steve was lost to view.