The Deceivers (30 page)

“I wouldn’t advise it right now. She’s pretty withdrawn. I’ll be in touch and I’ll phone you.”

“Bob Eldon wants to see her about some legal problems.”

“They’ll have to wait. She’s my patient and I’ll decide whom she can see and when.”

   Bucky was buried in a family plot in Battle Creek on Friday morning. Joan found the small announcement in the Hillton paper, requesting that flowers be omitted.

Joan was gaining in strength each day. She had begun to talk about how soon she could let Marie go so they could have the house to themselves. She worried constantly about Cindy, and wrote long and careful letters to the kids telling them of Bucky’s death.

On Saturday morning, while Carl was clipping the hedge, Bernie Madden phoned and said, “Our new miracle drugs for the mentally disturbed don’t seem to be performing any miracles. I just came back from Proctor. Bill Suthern out there is a hell of a good man. He can still reach her, and get limited responses, but he has the feeling she’s getting away from him. He knows all the facts. He had to be told, of course. We think you should take a run out there this afternoon. It’s a calculated risk. It may do some harm, but Bill thinks it’s a chance worth taking.”

“What do I do?”

“Talk to Dr. Suthern when you get there.”

He told Joan what Bernie wanted him to do.

“But why you, Carl? I mean we’re good friends and all, but I’d think that Molly or me would be better.”

“It’s Bernie’s idea.”

“It’s funny he should think you might reach her. Gee, the poor thing. But I guess if anything happened to you, I wouldn’t be much better off.”

   Dr. Suthern was young and brisk and professional. He led Carl across the grounds and pointed at a bench under a shade tree a hundred yards away. Cindy sat on the bench. A woman in white sat beside her, reading a magazine.

“The attendant is instructed to leave you alone with her, Mr. Garrett. Try to get any response you can. Anger her if you can. Think of her as somebody slowly drowning who
refuses to take the first stroke toward shore. If she should become violent, and I consider that most unlikely, the attendant will be observing you from a distance.”

As he approached the bench he was shocked at Cindy’s appearance. Her features had an uncharacteristic heaviness about them. She sat perfectly still, hands in her lap, looking with dull unfocused eyes at the grass fifteen feet in front of the bench. Her lips were parted and when he came close enough to see the string of saliva at the corner of her mouth, he felt as though his heart had turned over.

The gray-haired attendant stood up and said, as though speaking to the deaf, “There’s a visitor for you, dear. A nice man has come to see you. Isn’t that nice, dearie?”

Cindy made no response. The attendant took out a handkerchief and dabbed the spittle from the corner of Cindy’s mouth, shrugged expressively at Carl and walked away. He sat beside her, turned toward her, looked at her wooden profile and did not know what to say.

“Cindy. Cindy, this is Carl.” She did not respond. He sat on his heels in front of her so that she was looking into his face. He thought he saw a tiny shift of expression in her eyes, but then they were as dead as before.

“You can hear me,” he said. “You’re hiding, but you can hear me. Don’t keep on hiding, Cindy. If you keep on hiding, they will take Bobby and Bitsy away from you forever. They’ll take them away while you’re hiding down in there, and you’ll never see them again. You’ll never see Bobby and Bitsy again.”

He waited but there was no response.

“You have to wake up and fight, or you’ll never see them again.”

And he saw a tightness around her eyes. The dulled lips moved and she said in a whisper that was as faint as a sigh, “Please.”

“They’re your kids, Cindy. What a lousy life for them, living with old people who will teach them to hate their mother.”

“No,” she said, with more strength.

“But you’d rather hide and feel sorry for yourself. You’d rather be gutless. It’s easier for you. You don’t want to fight to keep them.”

The heavy-featured look disappeared slowly. And her eyes became intent and aware and fully awake. “I want them!” she said with passionate conviction. “They can’t have them!”

“Then wake up and start fighting.”

   She stood up so abruptly and started away so quickly that she caught him unaware. He caught up with her at the same time the attendant did. Cindy stopped and said to the attendant, “Let go of me. You’re hurting my arm. What do you want?”

“Now where were you going, dearie?”

Cindy looked around at the lawns and the brick buildings and said, “I’m going after my kids. I can’t stay here any more. I’ve got to go find my babies.”

“Now you come on along with Clara, dearie, and we’ll get you all fixed up and packed and everything so we can let you go find your children.”

Carl waited twenty minutes in the waiting room before Dr. Suthern returned from examining Cindy. He looked coldly pleased.

“It worked the way Dr. Madden and I hoped it would. I was hesitant to attempt electro-shock at this stage. We don’t know where she had withdrawn to but I suppose that in one sense she was mending while she was away from … our too real world. If it is convenient, I would like to have you visit her tomorrow. At about two?”

“I’ll be here, Doctor.”

   Cindy was composed and rational on Sunday. She acted very tired, but her mind was clear. She made no reference to any feeling of guilt or blame for what had happened. She wanted to know what Bob Eldon had said, and what would happen next, and when she could bring Bobby and Bitsy home.

“Once Bob fixes it up, I can go get them in the car. Where is the car?”

“He’d left the key at the air terminal. The airport people brought it back to the house last Thursday.”

“And today is Sunday. I have to remember that. Sunday the day … twenty-eighth. They’re being stupid here. They won’t let me out until Tuesday, they say. I’m perfectly all right and I keep telling them so. Tell Bob to come and see me, please.”

   Cindy Cable came home on Tuesday. On Wednesday Joan felt well enough to cut Marie to two days a week to do the heavier work around the house. By Thursday Carl was certain
that the arrangement with Ray Walsh was going to work smoothly, efficiently and well.

It was on Thursday evening, after dinner, that Joan said, “Put your paper down a minute, dear.”

“Yes?”

She had put her sewing aside. “Cindy has put their house on the market.”

“She has?”

“She doesn’t seem to have very definite plans of where she’ll go. All she can think of is getting the children back. She can’t seem to think beyond that point. And I certainly can’t understand why Bucky’s parents should try to keep her own children away from her. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Cindy is odd, of course, but she’s been awfully good with those kids. Can you understand why they’re making such a fuss?”

“No, dear.”

“Cindy doesn’t come over here at all during the day like she used to. And I’m beginning to feel uncomfortable about going over there. It isn’t that she’s unfriendly. She’s just sort of … polite to me when I stop over. It isn’t casual any more. It makes me uncomfortable.”

“I guess she’s under a strain.”

“I keep having the feeling that she’s keeping something from me. I think it has something to do with the children. I’ve sort of hinted, but nothing happens. If she’s in some kind of trouble she should tell her friends, so they can help her.”

“I guess it’s just that Bucky’s folks never approved of her.”

“I think they’re very stuffy people. Cindy is a fine person.”

“She certainly is.”

“Even though they’re making all this trouble about the children, Cindy packed a box with a lot of things of his, some of his boyhood things, you know, and shipped it to them because she thought they might like to have them.”

“That was nice of her.”

“She’s been going through everything, deciding what to keep. She gave me a pipe to give you.”

“What?”

Joan went and got the pipe and brought it to him. It was a dark briar in a fitted box. It had a wide silver band around the stem. It was obviously expensive, and brand new.

“It’s nice, but …”

“His birthday would have been in August and she got it a month or so ago, she said. She wondered if you’d have any use for it and I said I thought you would. I think it was very
expensive, that’s such a nice case for it. And you never smoke a pipe any more. It would be better for you, darling, than all those cigarettes. I wish you’d try to switch over to a pipe. I like to see you smoke a pipe. And I like the smell.”

“I might give it a try.”

“She was going to have his initials put on the band, but she hadn’t gotten around to it. She said you might want to come over and look at his fishing tackle and see if there’s anything you could use. I told her you never were much of a fisherman. Do you think you might want any of it?”

“I guess not.”

“I’ll tell her, then. She thinks she’ll give it to Ted Raedek, probably. Carl, what’s wrong with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You seem … so far away, I can’t seem to get anywhere near you. Ever since I got back from the hospital, you’ve been … sort of gloomy and remote. It’s almost as if you’re being … polite the way Cindy is.”

“I’ve been working pretty hard on the new lineup in the office.”

“I know you have.”

“I’m sorry I’m not more company.”

“It’s almost like … being alone in the house.” Her voice trembled slightly.

“You’re not alone. I’ll … try to do better.”

“I don’t want to be something you have to do something better about. I’m not an object or a problem in endurance or something, am I? I’m beginning to feel better than I’ve felt in two years … and there doesn’t seem to be anybody to enjoy it with. I wish the kids were home.”

“It won’t be long now.”

“Please pick up your paper and start reading again. That would be much better than having you sit there and look at me with all that patience.”

She left the room. He thought of going after her, then picked the paper up and began to read again.

Bob Eldon phoned him Friday afternoon when he was in conference. He phoned Eldon back at four o’clock and asked him if he could stop by the office at five-thirty.

Bob’s manner was less languid than usual. He was direct, intent and very serious.

“We’ve got the hearing set up, Carl. For Wednesday next at ten in the morning, before a Judge Howard.”

“Here?”

“No. Battle Creek. A man named Quickling has been handling our side of the case from there. I’ll drive Cindy over on Tuesday and we’ll have a conference with Quickling and stay over for the hearing. The Cables will appear with their legal counsel and the kids.”

“How does it look?”

“From what we can find out, not good. They’ll appear prepared to show proof that Cindy spent four consecutive nights in a motel with a man who was not her husband and who had registered them as man and wife under an assumed name. All we’ve got to depend on is the attitude of the kids, our proof that Cindy can support them, and the impression Cindy will make.”

“Will it be a private hearing?”

“Yes. Judge Howard isn’t the sort of man to yearn for that kind of publicity. If it goes the way the Cables want it to go, nothing will be heard of it. But if Cindy wins, there’s nothing to keep Cable from announcing his wish to appeal the decision to the press. It would appear that Bucky wrote, no letter to them. They will try to claim that it was Bucky’s wish that they had the children. That statement, of course, is unsubstantiated and under more formal circumstances could not be admitted as evidence. But in an informal hearing such as this, the judge will want to listen to it even if it is hearsay.”

“You’re not very optimistic.”

“No, I am not. The Cables have sufficient money, a nice home, a full-time servant. Cindy is a woman alone. If she had possession of the children I would be more optimistic in being able to prevent them being taken from her. But it will be considered that she turned them over to the Cables for practically the whole summer. Thus it can be implied that she considered the Cable home a suitable place for them to be for quite an extensive time.”

“I asked you before and I’ll ask you again. Can I be of help?”

“I’ve talked to Dr. Madden and a Dr. Suthern about Cindy. It alarmed me that she should be so completely and utterly confident that the children will be turned over to her. She can’t imagine anything else happening. To use Dr. Suthern’s word for it, her conviction is obsessional. Both doctors assure me that if the children are given into her custody as their natural mother, she will handle them well, and be a perfectly balanced person. But they say that if it
should go the other way, there might be a most unfavorable prognosis. They think she’ll go back over the edge, and go so far they won’t be able to reach her.”

“What do I have to do?”

“I won’t ask you to go over there with us. I won’t ask a man to turn himself into a martyr. I refuse to work on your sense of guilt. I told Dr. Madden that and he agreed with me. If we should be unlucky and Mr. Cable should be indiscreet enough, a wire service could pick this up. It has all the elements of a story that could make this whole situation notorious. You must bear in mind your responsibilities to your wife and your own children. Also you must know that my little device might fall flat and do Cindy more harm than good.”

“But it looks bad enough so that you’d like to take that chance.”

“I’d like to hope that Judge Howard is sufficiently human to understand how proximity and accident and opportunity entered into this, and how it became a very human lapse more easy to understand than forgive.”

“Does Cindy know about your idea?”

“I brought it up. She flatly refused to permit it. She told me I should not make such a proposal to you. She said it wasn’t necessary anyway. Who ever heard of taking children away from their own mother?”

“Bob, I …”

“Don’t say anything. Right now you’re under pressure. Don’t give me any kind of an answer. If you feel you have to do it to … get right with yourself, phone me Monday. If I don’t hear from you I will understand perfectly, and believe me, nobody will condemn you. It would be one of the most difficult things imaginable. I would try to give you every chance to run through the whole thing. I can’t prevent your being questioned, however. And that would be rougher than you can imagine. Think it over over the weekend, Carl. Try to be impartial with yourself. Think of where your true duties lie.”