Verdict Suspended Read online

  “No, he doesn’t. I talked to him this morning about letting me sell the house. He refused.”

  “Letting you sell the house?”

  “I’m the executor of Sheilah’s estate. I’ve handled all the family business for years…. It’s the only way, Curry. Jaime has nothing of his own. With his permission, I can get a court order to liquidate the property. He’ll be happier without it.”

  Curry listened intently. “Out of sight, out of mind,” he mused. “Has he been in the house since the murder?”

  “No, it’s locked up.”

  “But he doesn’t want to sell…. Did he live in the house with his sister?”

  “Not for some time—no.”

  “Then it’s not sentiment.”

  “It’s stubbornness. He’s hostile to any suggestion.”

  “You may be right. On the other hand, it may be that sense of direction.”

  Steve was puzzled. He eyed Curry skeptically. “Not returning to the scene of the crime?” he suggested.

  “Don’t be so scornful,” Curry said. “It does happen. I wouldn’t sell that house too quickly if I were you. Jaime may have a reason for wanting it that he knows nothing about.”

  “I don’t understand you,” Steve said. “I thought you came here because you’re worried about Jaime.”

  “I am. A confessed murderer who doesn’t know he confessed can be dangerous.”

  “But he killed Sheilah! She’s the woman who dominated him. He can’t kill her again!”

  It was a perfectly logical statement, delivered with heated conviction; but it did nothing to discourage the owlish brightness in Dr. Curry’s eyes.

  “Oh, can’t he, Mr. Quentin?” he challenged. “What do you think it is that drives a multiple killer to senseless violence? What is he doing but trying to exorcise some childhood demon—some weakness in himself that he transfers to others? … Did Sheilah Dodson’s death solve any problem? Did it make Jaime more of a man?”

  Dr. Curry’s pipe had gone out. He started to put it back in his mouth and saw that it was cold. He scowled at it, briefly, and stuffed it into the pocket of his smock. When he looked up Steve was watching him. A strangely reflective Steve who was coming in contact with a new and troubling idea. Curry nodded at the visible response to his conclusions.

  “The problem hasn’t been touched,” he said. “You know that, Mr. Quentin; otherwise you wouldn’t have been so anxious to find this house after seeing me on the beach.”

  “I wanted to know why you came here,” Steve said.

  “I’m here to write a book.” Curry stepped to the typewriter and tapped one or two keys. They were stiff from lack of use. He inserted a sheet of paper and painfully, with two fingers, typed out: “forty-five minutes.”

  He looked at Steve quizzically. “Haven’t you wondered about them?” he asked.

  A guard went up in Steve’s eyes. “I suppose you mean the period blocked out of Jaime’s memory,” he said.

  “More specifically,” Curry explained, “the time between Sheilah Dodson’s death—because, according to the confession we heard, she was killed almost immediately after Trench heard her fall—and the time Jaime was seen running from the house. Where was he? What did he do during that period?”

  “I don’t understand you,” Steve said. “Jaime’s been through the inquest. If there was anything to be learned …”

  “But there is. A void can’t remain a void … particularly not to Jaime Dodson. What I’m suggesting, Mr. Quentin, is that he may actually need to get back in that house. He doesn’t know why, but he wants to hold the property. He wants to go back and find what he forgot.”

  “The forty-five minutes,” Steve mused.

  “And whatever goes with them. Part of the need to kill is the need to have the act recognized,” Curry continued. “That’s why authorities are familiar with what, in my profession, we call the compulsion to confess. The button torn from the coat sleeve … the damning footprint in the mud … the unconscious signature left by the criminal … this isn’t mere detective fiction, Mr. Quentin. This is man, fallen from grace, leaving evidence of his guilt. This is man crying out for redemption at the moment of his act of murder. This is man saying, ‘Catch me, punish me, absolve me from my sins.’ It’s his nature … older than time. He may never have set foot in a church or opened a religious text, but the God his spiritually articulate brothers translate into Holy Writ is buried deep within him. He knows he’s a murderer, and he must be free of guilt.”

  Steve absorbed Dr. Curry’s speech with intense interest, but his mind fought back. “It’s a fascinating theory,” he said. “If it were infallible, there would be no unsolved crimes.”

  Curry smiled. “I didn’t mean to sound like God,” he said, “but the theory may very well be infallible. The clues may be left at every crime, but only the criminal has eyes to see them.”

  “The police searched Sheilah’s house!”

  “That’s what I mean. They searched for fingerprints, bloodstains, the usual thing. They’re limited. But a man carrying a solution within his mind, unaware that he has it—” Curry’s eyes were bright with excitement. “From a purely professional standpoint, Quentin, the possibilities are intriguing.”

  “And so you want Jaime to remain here,” Steve said angrily, “tortured by gossip—forced to dwell on what he should forget—just because of a hare-brained theory!”

  “I told you once before, I have a conscience,” Curry said.

  “What kind of conscience? A Calvinistic one?”

  “No,” Curry said softly. “Not even a Calvinistic one.” He took the cold pipe from his pocket and surveyed the half-burned contents sadly. He turned over the bowl and tapped it into his hand. He dropped the leavings into the wastebasket on the floor. When he looked up at Steve again it was with a curious concern. “I didn’t realize young Dodson meant so much to you,” he said. “I had the feeling that your attachment was to the dead sister.”

  Steve’s face colored. “We were friends,” he said. “I have a sense of loyalty.”

  “And loyalty includes the brother—or is it the brother’s wife? … No, don’t get angry,” he added, smiling. “I saw the young lady in court. I’m not immune to certain urges myself. But Jaime Dodson is my patient.”

  “Then will you please explain,” Steve demanded, “what it is you want him to do?”

  “Whatever he has to do,” Curry answered quietly, “to make peace with himself.”

  Chapter 8

  The morning sun turned the glass-peaked roof of Sheilah’s house into a blinding silver blade.

  Jaime walked alone on the beach. Greta was still asleep in the cottage—childlike, flat on her stomach and with her hands tightly clutching the pillow. Greta was a tender miracle. The gossip, the cruelty, the violence of the previous day, even her fears for him, had dissolved in the almost animal innocence and purity of her love. She held him, she caressed him, she slept. But for Jamie the night was an agony of wakefulness, of fighting down old doubts and silencing half-remembered voices. When at last the dawn yawned across the ceiling, he slid silently out of bed, got into his trunks, and went down to the sea.

  The sea was ablutionary. The waves were shocking cold: they pounded at him, roused him, forced his body to fight back until the blood raced through his veins, and old, muddy thoughts were washed out of his brain. The sea was an adversary that gave release. He emerged from it, finally, tingling and alive, to rub his body red with a shower towel snatched from the cottage bathroom; and then don an old gray sweat shirt and trot off the rest of the chill at a brisk pace along the beach. After a few hundred yards the trot became a walk. A few more and he reached the cove below Sheilah’s house.

  For a few moments Jaime could see nothing but the bright blaze high on the rocks above him. Sheilah’s monument to herself wasn’t easy to forget. She’d chosen the highest and most dramatic point in the area for her house. It perched there, like an eagle with wings spread, waiting for the insta
nt of flight.

  Gradually Jaime became aware that he wasn’t alone. Blending with the sand, clad in faded tan corduroys, jacket, and an old canvas hat that might have doubled as a bait bucket, was a fisherman of dubious skill. At the moment of discovery he was engaged in the final stages of untangling a long troll line. The conclusion came swiftly as he whipped out a pocket knife, slashed at the cord, and watched with obvious glee as the troublesome line was whipped out to sea.

  He looked up and saw Jaime watching him. His eyes wrinkled with recognition. “Good morning,” he said. “I’ve just had a most interesting catch. At least twenty pounds of seaweed and an empty pop bottle.”

  “No message?” Jaime suggested.

  The man stooped and examined the bottle. “No deposit, no return,” he read. “Sounds grim, doesn’t it?”

  Jaime moved closer. The face under the battered hat was familiar. He’d seen it once before by match-light. “You’re Mr. Howard,” he said.

  “That’s right,” the fisherman admitted.

  “And I’m the man who owes you for a bag of groceries you forgot in my car.” And then, as Howard’s eyes smiled in remembrance, he added: “Or did you forget them, Mr. Howard?”

  Howard snapped the knife shut. “Let’s just say that the groceries found their way to the house for which they were intended. I believe in fate—if we help it along.”

  “You came to the Point at a bad time,” Jamie said. “Our beautiful citizens are being ugly.”

  “Don’t apologize,” Howard said. “I’ve never believed Chamber of Commerce brochures anyway.” He began to wind up the tag end of line on an oversized reel. Whatever else he was, he was no fisherman. The reel snarled, jammed, finally swallowed the cord. Howard looked up at Jaime appraisingly. “You’re Jaime Dodson,” he said. “Your sister was murdered in that amazing house on the point above us.”

  “I never meant to be so famous,” Jaime said.

  “No?” Howard looked skeptical; then turned his attention to the house. “She must have been a remarkable woman,” he said. “Imagination, originality, drive—”

  “Especially drive,” Jaime said.

  Again he received a sharp, calculating stare. “Is that why you resented her?” Howard asked. “You shouldn’t. She didn’t emasculate you.”

  Jaime reddened in quick anger. “I didn’t say—”

  “No. You didn’t. I did. I read the newspaper accounts of the inquest … Jaime Dodson, town bad boy and rebel. You shouldn’t be jealous of your sister; success wasn’t her fault. She had an advantage over you. She was a woman. She had to be twice as good in her profession as any male competitor … work twice as hard for recognition. That’s what we men do to gifted women—turn them into the Amazons they don’t want to be. Force them to climb so high they can’t be reached.”

  Howard looked up at the house again. It perched on the top of a sheer rock wall that rose at least twenty feet above the sandy cove. The house itself pointed seaward, terminating in an uncovered deck that led, by means of sliding glass doors, into Sheilah’s study. It was a selfish house designed to keep all the best for the owner. Guests had to be satisfied with lesser views.

  “Extremely high,” Howard mused. “And there’s no access from the beach.”

  “You mean the house,” Jaime said. “No, not here. The drop’s too steep.”

  “Then he must have come off the highway. That’s remarkable, isn’t it?”

  It was difficult to keep up with Howard’s mind.

  “What do you mean?” Jaime asked.

  “Why, the prowler,” Howard said. “The elusive and deadly prowler that nobody saw. And yet it was still daylight. Your sister was expecting guests for dinner. The preparations were in the kitchen. If he came in the rear door he would have seen them and assumed the house was full of people. The front entrance provided no cover. I’d want cover if I were entering a house intent on burglary and violence—wouldn’t you?”

  Jaime stood still. There was no more chill in the air now. He wasn’t aware of climate at all. There was a strangeness, as if he were moving backward through time.

  “Howard,” he asked, “who are you?”

  Howard’s face turned toward him. Partly shadowed by the battered hat, creased with time and good humor, he met Jaime’s inquiry with a wry smile. “I told you,” he said.

  “But I don’t believe you. You don’t sound like a biologist. You sound like a policeman.”

  Howard stooped down and picked up his tackle box—a ridiculous thing meant for a mountain trout stream. He opened the lid and dropped the reel inside. “Mr. Dodson,” he said quietly, “everyone talks and second-guesses a murder … but not everyone is worried about policemen.”

  When Jaime returned to the cottage Greta was preparing breakfast. She was all blonde and soft green in a crisp cotton dress that made her look just about old enough for her first date, and it occurred to Jaime that she was the only woman he’d known who could look as alluring pouring coffee at eight o’clock in the morning as she had looked at eight o’clock on the previous evening.

  “You’ve been swimming and didn’t call me,” she scolded.

  “You were asleep.” Impulsively, Jaime grabbed her arm. “Let’s go now.”

  “Now?” She scowled at him in mock anger. “Jaime, I have to get down to the shop!”

  “Hang the shop,” Jaime said. “Didn’t you have enough yesterday?”

  “Yesterday’s over. This is today.”

  And then, suddenly, senselessly, he was angry. “Women like to suffer, don’t they?” he said.

  There was a twinge of hurt in her eyes from the strength of his grip, and a puzzle for the question.

  “Suffering makes you feel heroic…. Why did you insist on marrying me as soon as the trial was over?”

  “Because I love you,” she said.

  “Not to prove your loyalty? Greta, I don’t want you just because you’re loyal!”

  The hurt in her eyes was deeper now, and not from the grip of his hand. “What do you want me to say?” she demanded. “Do you want me to say that Sheilah was right? … That I married you for your money? Is that what you think?”

  “Oh, my God,” Jaime said.

  He pulled her to him and held her close. So close her body became a part of his body, and her mouth a part of his mouth while he clung to the one reality in a world that was whirling and crashing about him. A world of gossip and rumors … of a strange man on the beach who needled him with a troublesome thought … of the feverish doubts in his own mind. And then he laid his face gently against the side of her head. “Don’t you know?” he said. “Don’t you understand? You’re the only thing I’ve had in my whole life that I want enough to fight for.”

  And then it was cool in his mind. Cool and clear, because he knew now what the doubts were and what he had to do about them.

  Sheilah was never an artist. She was a fire, a force, a dynamo. She was a dramatist with cement and steel; she was a personality and a promoter, and to some men she was a goddess. But to Jaime she was all angles and squares and structural materials; she was a collage of paper clips and carpeting swatches mounted on a drafting board. She was GOOD and EVIL printed on reading cards, with NO and YES on other reading cards ready to tell him which was which. But they were only words, and it seemed to Jaime that she usually had the cards confused.

  He thought of these things as he drove to the office, because Sheilah was dead and he felt something; but there was no one to hold up the card and tell him exactly what it was.

  Cy Shepherd’s station wagon was in the parking lot. Jaime puzzled over it as he berthed the convertible alongside. Cy was a contractor. He had plenty of jobs to look after, even with the Cultural Center project tied up tight. He had his own office on the other side of town, and there was nothing to bring him here. Jaime fingered his pockets for the keys as he walked to the rear door. The office had been locked since Sheilah’s death. He started to slip the key into the lock, but the door opened at
the pressure of his hand.

  “Cy?”

  The sound hung sharply in the air. Jaime walked through a short corridor. The front blinds had been closed for several weeks; but a light was coming from Sheilah’s office. He stepped to the door.

  “Cy—what the devil!”

  Sheilah’s office was a functional poem. The desk was a wide teak slab set on stainless steel legs; the walls were lined with cabinets and shelves. Everything was as orderly as a walk-in filing cabinet. But not today. Every drawer had been opened; the desk was piled high with debris; and when Jaime pivoted toward the wide framed abstract between the bookshelves, he received a double shock. The painting was off center and the opened wall safe exposed; but the startled and cowed figure responsible for the state of the room wasn’t Cy Shepherd. It was his wife, Tilde.

  She looked like a frightened child caught raiding the cookie jar. She drew back against the wall, concealing one hand behind her, and managed a weak, off-center smile.

  “Jaime,” she said. “What you must think!”

  She didn’t leave much to the imagination. Jaime moved quickly and pulled her away from the wall. The concealed hand held a wide manila envelope.

  “No, Jaime, please!” she said. “It isn’t important … not to you!”

  “Then I won’t want to keep it,” Jaime said. He ignored Tilde’s eyes and ripped open the envelope. A sheaf of papers were held together with a heavy paper clip. The top paper was a police photo—front and profile. The subject was Cy.

  “Cyril Sheldon,” Jaime read slowly, “convicted of armed robbery …”

  “It was a long time ago,” Tilde begged. “Please, Jaime. I only want to destroy it before Steve settles the estate.”

  Jaime flicked through the pages. Documentary evidence of Cy’s conviction and prison term nearly twenty years ago.

  “He was a boy!” Tilde said. “Barely eighteen. She found out and held it over him.”

  Jaime was confused. “Sheilah did that?”

  “Yes, our sainted Sheilah!”

  “But why? She and Cy got along fine.”