Mother's Day (28 page)

“Oh, it was,” said Phyllis impatiently. “We all know that.”

“Phyllis, you’re a little out of your depth on this.” He leaned back against the comer cabinet and folded his arms over his chest.

Phyllis came closer, hemming him in. “I figured it out. Do you want to hear about it?”

“Sure,” said Walter slowly. He fancied he could feel her breath, stale on his face, although that was impossible. The top of her head was barely level with his shoulders.

“Who do you think killed Eddie McHugh?” Phyllis asked. Before Walter could respond, she rattled on. “I say there’s two possibilities. First, Newhall came back and killed him. It’s possible. After all, Eddie claimed to have seen him beat up Linda Emery. But he might have made that up, thinking it was what the police wanted to hear. The other possibility is, what if he saw somebody else in that room? And that person got nervous when they read my article.”

Naturally you would think your article was the crucial factor, Walter thought with disgust. What an arrogant fool. “You can speculate from now till doomsday,” he said impatiently. “It’s meaningless.”

“No, that’s just it,” Phyllis cried. “I have a plan.”

She was too close to him, yapping at him like one of Sylvia’s little terriers. He could not stand being cornered any longer. “Excuse me,” he said coldly.

Phyllis backed off just enough for him to brush past her. But she persisted without embarrassment. “I remembered reading about this. It just took me a while to remember where, and look it up.” She handed him a piece of paper. It had the name and address of a doctor in Philadelphia on it.

“What is this?”

“The engineer,” Phyllis exulted.

Walter frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”

“He claims he doesn’t remember seeing what happened, right? He just saw Eddie hurtling out in front of him.”

“Yes, that’s what the man said.”

“But he was probably in shock when you questioned him.”

“We took that into account, Phyllis. He was questioned again today. He’s not in shock now.”

“Yes, but he’s still traumatized.” Phyllis could barely contain her glee. “He can’t remember what he saw because he was traumatized by what happened. I mean, he killed a man. Accidentally, but all the same.”

“Well, yes, unfortunately.”

“So,” said Phyllis, her voice rising. “This is a doctor at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, who specializes in this sort of case. He hypnotizes people, and under hypnosis they are able to recall what they really saw. I remembered reading about a case exactly like this. A subway driver. And I finally found the article in the library. Anyway, we take our engineer to this guy, and have him hypnotized, and he’ll be able to recall the person who pushed Eddie onto the tracks. Maybe he can even describe the perp.”

There was something infinitely annoying about the way Phyllis used police jargon. He knew she felt entitled, because her father had been a cop. And that flushed, triumphant expression on her face was infuriating. He forced himself to think about what she was saying. He could picture the whole thing in his mind. The engineer, deep in a trance, visualizing himself once again at the controls of the train, seeing the twilight, the tracks, the man in his path, the person who pushed him. Opening his eyes and looking straight at Walter, the answer slowly dawning on him. She was right. It was a good idea.

“What do you think?” said Phyllis proudly.

“I think it might work,” said Walter.

“That’s what I think,” Phyllis exulted. “You know, I have a feeling I am going to get a book out of this case. And I’m going to mention you in the acknowledgments. Uncle Walter,” she teased, using a sobriquet from childhood days.

“Thank you,” said Walter solemnly, slipping the piece of paper with the doctor’s name into his jacket pocket.

“Wait a minute,” she said, reaching playfully for the paper in his pocket, like a child reaching in her daddy’s pocket for candy. “It’s my lead. I want to be sure I’m in on this. And that I get the credit.”

Walter brushed her hand away like a fly and walked over to where the hammer lay on the counter.

“Now just a minute,” said Phyllis in a huffy tone. “I came to you because I need your help on this. But that doesn’t give you the right to bypass me.”

It was too bad, really, Walter thought. Stan Hodges hadn’t been a bad guy. They’d played some poker together, gone to picnics, done the things that cops do. It was a fraternity of sorts. All for one and so on. But Phyllis had brought this on herself. Even Stan would have to admit that, if he were alive. Besides, he had to silence her. This thing was mushrooming out of control, and if she yapped long enough, and loud enough, people would start to listen to her. He picked up the hammer and turned to face her.

Phyllis, who was in mid-complaint, was abruptly silenced by the look on his face. “What are you doing with that hammer?” she demanded. “If you’re trying to threaten me, that is really sick.”

Walter did not reply. Behind the glint of his glasses, his eyes were calm and cold. He was staring at her with an intense yet distant look on his face. It was weird. Scary. She had never seen a look quite like it. It made her feel small, like a speck of dirt. His hands worked on the handle of the hammer.

“All right, you can have the stupid paper,” she said. But even as she said it, she knew that it was no longer hers to give. She had the sudden, vivid realization that she should never have come here. She was in danger. She did not understand it, but she was not a stupid woman. She knew this was not the time to argue about it or try to figure it out. Just leave, she said to herself. Don’t say anything else. Just go. She turned and bolted for the door. In one swift movement Walter stepped in front of her, blocking her way.

“Hey,” she protested, but it was empty bravado. Her voice was breathy with fear. Move, she told herself, but she could not budge from the spot. In a moment of terrible understanding, she put up her hands as Walter swiftly lifted the hammer, aimed at her head, and whacked it down.

“Mom!” The shriek from upstairs startled her. K
aren cried out and sliced her own finger with the knife she was using to peel an apple. She fumbled for a paper towel, spattering the roll with blood as she ripped one off raggedly and stanched the oozing blood.

“What is it?” she cried, rushing down the hall, her finger raised, the blood seeping through the paper.

Jenny clattered down the steps, her face white, clutching a creased sheet of stationery and a fluttering, yellowed newspaper clipping. She stopped short when she saw her mother’s hand, her eyes drawn to the splash of scarlet. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Karen said impatiently. “What happened? Why did you yell like that?”

Jenny looked at her mother with wide eyes and held out the clipping. “Look what I found. In Linda’s bank.”

Karen frowned and reached out.

“No, don’t get blood on them,” said Jenny. “Let me get a bandage.”

“Thanks,” said Karen. She went and sat down on the living room sofa. Jenny reappeared with a gauze-padded bandage and, placing her clippings on the coffee table, removed the paper towel with trembling hands and slapped the bandage over the cut and the blood seeping out. Karen sat meekly, feeling like a small child as her daughter repaired her cut finger.

“There,” said Jenny, crouching before her.

“Thank you, honey,” said Karen.

Jenny looked up in her mother’s eyes and rested her hand on one knee. “Mom, I think this is something really important.”

Karen smoothed the bandage down and looked curiously at the papers on the table. “What are these?”

“Read them,” said Jenny. “I found them in Linda’s bank. Read the clipping first. But, be careful. They’re old.” She wadded up the bloodiest paper towels. “I’ll throw these away. You read.”

“Okay,” said Karen, carefully picking up the clipping and perusing it. Jenny disappeared down the hall.

Karen read the old clipping several times. An escaped convict. Randolph Summers. A forty-year-old news story from the Midwest. It didn’t tell her much, although it was surely a strange thing for a teenaged girl to save.

Karen put down the clipping and picked up the creased, faded lilac sheet of stationary. The handwriting on the paper was definitely girlish, unformed. There was no greeting. The words covered the page. There were no margins. No paragraphs. I don’t know what to do, it began. There is no one in the world I can tell…I’ve thought about it over and over, but there’s no answer. If I tell what he is doing to me, then he will tell about Daddy, and Daddy will have to go back to prison for his whole life. At first I didn’t think it was true, but then he brought me this clipping to prove it. The man in the picture is my father. He’s right about that. So, I have to be quiet and let him do what he wants. But I can’t bear it much longer. The things he does to me are terrible and so painful, too. And I can’t tell. Every day I wake up and wish I was dead. I ask God to help me, but God doesn’t listen. I will never be able to get married and have a normal life because he has ruined me and men will just think I am always garbage now. I know it would be a mortal sin to kill myself, but sometimes it seems like the best thing to do.

Karen read the page over several times. Jenny crept back into the room and sat down beside her, watching her mother’s face. Karen shook her head as if to deny the meaning of what she was seeing. “My God,” she murmured. “Poor thing. Poor Linda.”

Jenny suddenly began to cry and looked at her mother helplessly. Karen kept shaking her head. It was too awful to imagine. She squeezed her hand over Jenny’s white knuckles. “Poor thing,” Karen repeated, her own eyes welling with tears.

“What does it mean, Mom? Well, I mean, I know what it means, sort of…”

Karen glanced at her daughter, still a child, but, thanks to movies and television, overly wise to the sordid side of life, at least as far as information was concerned. She clenched Jenny’s hand in her own. “Your mother was the victim of a horrible crime. She was being blackmailed with this information about her father.”

“Her father was an escaped convict? Do you think my…you know, her mother knew?”

Karen shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t think so. I think her father kept it a secret. And so did Linda. Just like her tormentor wanted her to do.”

“And this person was blackmailing her…not for money,” said Jenny. It was not a question.

“No,” said Karen grimly. “Not for money. That poor girl.”

“Wait a minute, Mom,” Jenny cried. “You don’t think it was Dad?”

Karen looked startled. “Dad! No, no, of course not.” She read the papers again, wishing the frightened girl had named her torturer. “No, of course not,” she repeated.

Like probing a diseased tooth, Jenny offered, “What about if he blackmailed her into giving me up?”

Karen knew Jenny did not believe this for a minute. She was imagining the questions from the police. Karen felt pity for her, to be so familiar with such matters. She looked up at Jenny, and for a brief, surreal moment, she felt a deep kinship with the murdered woman, an understanding as lucid as if they had shared their innermost thoughts. “There’s no way she would ever have let him adopt you.”

She looked down at the letter again, thinking of that long-ago girl, trying to protect her father whom she loved, her family. Paying with everything she had, her dignity and her innocence. “No,” said Karen again. “Your mother would never have knowingly given her child to a monster. But, you’re right about these papers. They are very important. This is her killer. I feel sure of it. Your father is right. This is who she came here seeking.”

“What do you mean, Dad is right?”

Karen looked up in confusion. Jenny did not know about their meeting. “I just meant…he told me there had to be another explanation. This is it.”

Jenny gave a hollow chuckle. “And I thought she came to see me.”

“She did,” Karen reassured her absently, ruminating on all that these documents implied. “But it wasn’t the only reason “

“But why?” Jenny protested. “Why after all this time? All these years. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Mmmm…” Karen frowned, thinking of the things that Linda had told them. She had come back to meet Jenny. She had come back for Mother’s Day. She had come back because she had learned…and then suddenly Karen understood why. It all made sense. “Because he’s dead now,” she said.

“Who?” asked Jenny, confused.

“Her father,” said Karen. “She told us her father died a few months ago. That means the blackmailer had nothing over her anymore. Once her father was dead, she was free to come back, to expose him. Her father couldn’t be sent back to prison.”

Jenny shrieked and jumped to her feet. “You’re right! That’s right. Mom, you’re a genius.”

Karen motioned for her to sit down. “Don’t get too excited. We still don’t know who it is.” She looked out the window at the darkness, the rain on the windows, and felt suddenly vulnerable. Someone evil had chosen to entangle them in this, had pinned the blame on Greg. Someone depraved, who knew too much about them. For a minute she allowed herself to wish that Greg were there with them. She hated being alone in the house, just her and Jenny. No one knows about these papers, she reminded herself. No one knows you have them. The killer thinks his secret is safe.

“Yeah, but the police can find out who it is, now that we have these papers. And Dad can come home.” Karen shook her head. “It’s not that simple.” “Why not? Let’s call them up and tell them.” “Let me think,” said Karen. “We need to do the right thing.”

“Come on, Mom. The sooner you tell them, the sooner Dad will be able to come back.”

Karen stood up and walked out to the phone in the hall. Jenny followed her, jiggling impatiently from foot to foot.

“Who are you calling?” she asked as Karen dialed and held the receiver to her ear.

“Our lawyer,” she said. “Mr. Richardson.” “Don’t call him. He can’t do anything.” Even as her daughter pestered her, Karen listened with a sinking sensation to the recording on Arnold Richardson’s office machine. “Mr. Richardson is away on business. You can contact him at his office on Tuesday morning.”