Stillwatch (29 page)

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Authors: Mary Higgins Clark

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Anthologies (Multiple Authors)

BOOK: Stillwatch
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“I . . . I don’t know. Why do you want to talk to him?”“Just to ask a few questions. By any chance has he called you this morning?”
This man thought Arthur was her father. He wasn’t interested in her.
“He . . . he did call. But I was on the phone with my boss.”“What did he want?”“He . . . wanted me to meet him and I said I couldn’t.”“Where did he want you to meet him?”Father ’s words rang in her ears.
Metro Central . . . Twelfth and Gexit . . .
Was he there now? Was he in trouble? Father had taken careof her all these years. She could not hurt him now.She chose her words carefully. “I couldn’t stay on the phone. I . . .I just said I couldn’t leave the office and practically hung up on him.Why do you want to talk to him? What’s wrong?”“Well, maybe nothing.” The detective’s voice was kind. “Doesyour dad talk to you about his patients?”“Yes.” It was easy to answer that question. “He cares so muchabout them.”“Has he ever mentioned Mrs. Gillespie to you?”“Yes. She died last week, didn’t she? He felt so bad. Somethingabout her daughter coming to visit her.” She thought about the wayhe had cried out in his sleep, “Close your eyes, Mrs. Gillespie. Closeyour eyes.” Maybe he had made a mistake when he was helping Mrs.Gillespie and they were blaming him for it.“Has he seemed different lately—nervous or anything like that?”“He is the kindest man I know. His whole life is devoted to helpingpeople. In fact, they just asked him at the nursing home to go toTennessee and help out there.”The detective smiled. “How old are you, Miss Stevens?”“Thirty-four.”He looked surprised. “You don ’t look it. According to theemployment records, Arthur Stevens is forty-nine.” He paused, thenin a friendly voice added, “He’s not your real father, is he?”Soon he would be pinning her down with questions. “He used tobe a parish priest but decided to spend his whole life caring for thesick. When I was very ill and had no one, he took me in.”

 

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Now he would ask her real name. But he didn’t.“I see. Miss . . . Miss Stevens, we do want to talk to, er . . . FatherStevens. If he calls you, will you contact me?” He gave her his card.DETECTVE WILLIAM BARROTT. She could sense him studyingher. Why wasn’t he asking her more questions about herself, abouther background?He was gone. She sat alone in the private office until Opal came in.“Gloria, is anything wrong?”Opal was a good friend, the best friend she’d ever had. Opal hadhelped her think of herself as a woman again. Opal was always afterher to go to parties, saying her boyfriend would fix her up with ablind date. She’d always refused.“Gloria, what’s wrong?” Opal repeated. “You look terrible.”“No, nothing’s wrong. I have a headache. Do you think I could go home?”“Sure; I’ll finish your typing. Gloria, if there’s anything I can do . . . “Glory looked into her friend’s troubled face. “Not anymore, butthank you for everything.”She walked home. The temperature was in the forties, but evenso, the day was raw with a chill that penetrated her coat and gloves.The apartment, with its shabby, rented furniture, seemed strangelyempty, as though it sensed they would not be returning. She went tothe hall closet and found the battered black suitcase that Father hadbought at a garage sale. She packed her meager supply of clothing,her cosmetics and the new book Opal had given her for Christmas.The suitcase wasn’t large, and it was hard to force the locks to snap.There was something else—her Raggedy Ann doll. At the mental-health clinic the psychiatrist had asked her to draw a picture of howshe felt about herself, but somehow she couldn’t do that. The dollwas with some others on a shelf, and he had given it to her. “Do youthink you could show me how this doll would look if it were you?”It hadn’t been hard to paint the tears and to sketch in the frightenedlook about the eyes and to change the thrust of the mouth so thatinstead of smiling it seemed about to scream.“That bad?” the doctor had said when she was finished.“Worse.”

 

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Oh, Father, she thought, I wish I could stay here and wait until youcall me. But they’re going to find out about me. That detective isprobably having me checked right now. I can’t run away anymore.While I have the courage, I have to turn myself in. Maybe it will helpme get a lighter sentence for breaking parole.There was one promise she could keep. Miss Langley had beggedher to call that television celebrity Patricia Traymore before she didanything. Now she made the call, told what she planned and listenedimpassively to Pat’s emotional pleading.Finally at three o’clock she left. A car was parked down the street.Two men were sitting in it. “That’s the girl,” one of them said. “Shewas lying about not planning to meet Stevens.” He sounded regretful.The other man pressed his foot on the pedal. “I told you she washolding back on you. Ten bucks she’ll lead us to Stevens now.”

 

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Pat sped across town to the Lotus Inn Restaurant on WisconsinAvenue. Desperately she tried to think of some way she could persuadeEleanor Brown not to surrender herself yet. Surely she could bepersuaded to listen to reason.She had tried to reach Sam, but after five rings had slammed downthe phone and run out. Now as she rushed into the restaurant shewondered if she would recognize the girl from her high school picture.Was she using her own name? Probably not.The hostess greeted her. “Are you Miss Traymore?”“Yes, I am.”“Miss Brown is waiting for you.”She was sitting at a rear table sipping chablis. Pat slipped into thechair opposite her, trying to collect herself to know what to say. EleanorBrown had not changed very much from her high school picture. Shewas obviously older, no longer painfully thin and prettier than Pathad expected, but there was no mistaking her.She spoke softly. “Miss Traymore? Thank you for coming.”“Eleanor, please listen to me. We can get you a lawyer. You can beout on bail while we work something out. You were in the midst of abreakdown when you violated parole. There are so many angles agood lawyer can work.”The waiter came with an appetizer of butterfly shrimp. “I used todream of these,” Eleanor said. “Do you want to order something?”“No. Nothing. Eleanor, did you understand what I said?”“Yes, I did.” Eleanor dipped one of the shrimp in the sweet sauce.“Oh, that’s good.” Her face was pale but determined. “Miss Traymore,I hope I can get my parole reinstated, but if I can’t, I know I’m strongenough now to serve the time they gave me. I can sleep in a cell, andwear a prison uniform, and eat that slop they call food, and put up

 

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with the strip searches and the boredom. When I get out I won’t haveto hide anymore, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying toprove my innocence.”“Eleanor, wasn’t the money found in your possession?”“Miss Traymore, half the people in the office knew about thatstoreroom. When I moved from one apartment to the other, six or eightof them helped. We made a party of it. The furniture I couldn’t use wascarried down to the storage room.
Some
of the money was found there,but seventy thousand dollars went into someone else’s pocket.”“Eleanor, you claim Toby phoned you and he said he didn’t. Didn’tyou think it unusual to be asked to go to the campaign office on Sunday?”Eleanor pushed aside the shells on her plate. “No. You see theSenator was up for reelection. A lot of mailings were sent from thecampaign office. She used to drop by and help just to make thevolunteers feel important. When she did that she would take off herbig diamond ring. It was a little loose and she really was carelesswith it. A couple of times she left without it.”“And Toby or someone sounding like Toby said she’d lost ormislaid it again.”“Yes. I knew she’d been in the campaign office on Saturday helpingwith the mailings, so it sounded perfectly natural that she might haveforgotten it again and one of the senior aides might have put it in thesafe for her.“I believe Toby was driving the Senator at the time the call wasmade. The voice was muffled and whoever spoke to me didn’t saymuch. It was something like, ‘See if the Senator ’s ring is in thecampaign safe and let her know.’ I was annoyed because I wanted togo to Richmond to sketch and I even said something like ‘she’llprobably find it under her nose.’ Whoever it was who phoned sort oflaughed and hung up. If Abigail Jennings hadn’t talked so much aboutthe second chance she had given me, called me a convicted thief, Iwould have had a better chance of reasonable doubt. I’ve lost elevenyears of my life for something I didn’t do and I’m not losing anotherday.” She stood up and laid money on the table. “That should covereverything.” Bending down, she picked up her suitcase, then paused.

 

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“You know what’s hardest for me now? I’m breaking my promise tothe man I’ve been living with, and he’s been so good to me. He beggedme not to go to the police yet. I wish I could explain to him, but Idon’t know where he is.”“Can I call him for you later? What’s his name? Where does he work?”“His name is Arthur Stevens. I think there’s some problem at hisjob. He won’t be there. There’s nothing you can do. I hope yourprogram is very successful, Miss Traymore. I was terribly upset whenI read the announcement about it. I knew that if even one picture ofme was shown I’d be in jail within twenty-four hours. But you know,that made me realize how tired I was of running. In a crazy way, itgave me the courage to face going back to prison so that someday Ireally will be free. Father, I mean Arthur Stevens, just couldn’t acceptthat. And now I’d better go before I run out of courage.”Helplessly Pat watched her retreating back.As Eleanor left the restaurant two men at a corner table got up andfollowed her out.

 

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“Abby, it’s not as bad as it could be.” In the forty years he had knownher, it was only the third time he had had his arms around her. Shewas sobbing helplessly.“Why didn’t you tell me she was staying in that house?”“There was no reason to.”They were in Abigail’s living room. He’d shown her the articlewhen they arrived, then tried to calm the inevitable explosion.“Abby, tomorrow this newspaper will be lining garbage cans.”“I don’t want to line garbage cans!” she’d screamed.He poured a straight Scotch and made her drink it. “Come on,Senator, pull yourself together. Maybe there’s a photographer hidingin the bushes.”“Shut up, you bloody fool.” But the suggestion had been enoughto shock her. And after the drink, she’d started to cry. “Toby, it lookslike the old penny-dreadful scandal sheets. And that picture. Toby,

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