Verdict Suspended (14 page)

“Jaime—what is it? What are you doing here?”

She was everything he wanted in life … and she was moving toward him through the nightmare that was truth.

“Go away from me,” he said. “Go away from me—please! … I’m a murderer!”

Greta stood motionless in the center of Sheilah’s living room. There was nothing alive about her but her eyes. They were greedy for understanding.

“Jaime,” she said, “put that poker down.”

It was a sensible thing to say. Jaime didn’t expect it. He lowered his arm and let the poker slip from his fingers to the floor.

“You’ve made such a mess,” she added. “Look at that broken glass! You might have cut yourself … or put out an eye!” Incredibly, she stooped to the floor and began to gather up splinters of broken glass. “Go out in the kitchen,” she said, “and get a dustpan.”

Jaime knelt beside her. “Greta, didn’t you hear what I said?” he demanded.

“I heard when I came in. I saw the lights come on in the roof and I thought it might be you. I came as fast as I could … and found you smashing glasses …”

He caught her by the wrist and held fast. “Greta, don’t you believe me?”

There was fear in her eyes, and pain. Tears were an instant away. Belligerently she said: “There must be a broom closet in this freak house … Jaime, you’re hurting my arm!”

She wouldn’t answer him. He let go of her and went to the kitchen. The room was a mystery to him, but he finally located the closet and returned to Greta with a dustpan and a broom. She was standing at the bar looking down at it with a puzzled expression.

“Jaime,” she said, “there are only seven of my glasses here.”

It was difficult to follow Greta. She walked in on the tail of a hurricane, calmly began to pick up the debris, and now, ignoring a confession of murder, was calmly taking inventory of Sheilah’s glassware. He dropped the broom and dustpan and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Are you hysterical?” he demanded. “Is that why you won’t listen to me?”

She was afraid. He could feel the tension in her body.

“I love you,” she said, “and I won’t believe you.”

“But it’s true!”

“No. I won’t let it be true! I’ll get the poker, Jaime, and I’ll smash everything in this room. I’ll shout, ‘It’s not true! It’s not true! It’s not true!’ … If that will impress you. I’ll top your performance, Jaime.”

“But I’m serious,” Jaime said. “I remembered everything before you came in…. Listen to me. I’ve been to the hospital. There was a third psychiatrist. Steve hired him. He gave me sodium amytal. They get confessions with sodium amytal. Confessions, Greta—ask Steve. He knows.”

“No—that isn’t true!” she said.

“But it is true! The psychiatrist is in town now. His name is Curry … but he calls himself Mr. Howard and he lives in a house on the beach. He watches me. Steve watches me. They’re waiting to see how long it takes for me to remember what I told them at the hospital.”

“Jaime, you sound sick.”

“No, I sound well—for the first time since the night Sheilah died. Listen, Greta, all day I’ve been following my own trail. I know now what I did that night.” He let go of her shoulders and walked to the mantel. Everything was in place. He turned and faced her again. “I came here early,” he said, “just as Trench testified. I had a row with Sheilah. She told me she was cutting me out of the business. She had something on me and could do it. She said things about you. I lost my temper. I threw my drink at her. She was off balance. She fell … I picked up the poker and killed her.”

Greta absorbed his words without change of expression. She still held one of the monogrammed glasses cupped protectively in her hands. “What did you do then?” she asked.

“I drove to the Center. Sheilah told me to go there—a change had been made. The change was the sign. She had my initial painted out. It was her nice way of telling the world she was finished with me…. I know I was there because I found tire prints in cement poured that afternoon.”

“I don’t understand,” Greta said.

“Tire prints—from my car. I went to Hanson’s Pier today looking for the wreckage. It’s there … in a garage. One fender was torn off in the accident. The underside of it’s coated with dried cement.”

“But that doesn’t explain anything!”

“It explains everything! Don’t you see what happened? I killed Sheilah. I drove to the Center, saw the sign, then headed for the highway. It was twilight when I reached Hanson’s Pier. I was going too fast to see the barricade.”

“Jaime, you aren’t making sense!” Greta protested. “I saw you
here
a few minutes before eight. You didn’t have time to get to Hanson’s Pier when you did if you drove to the building site first!”

“But I did go …”

“When? After you killed Sheilah? If you did, you must have come back. Would you do that, knowing guests were arriving at eight? Would anyone?”

“But she
was
dead!” Jaime insisted. “Here, on the floor—” He stopped abruptly. Truth was a clown. It appeared with a painted face and a tattered suit. It juggled red balls and turned cartwheels. In its lapel it wore a giant sunflower that spewed out water; it teased and taunted and appeared when least expected.

“Jaime,” Greta said, “what’s wrong?”

He didn’t answer. He left her twisting a crystal highball glass in her hands and went back to the kitchen. He opened the broom closet again and took out a wastebasket. He dug through the contents until he found a heavy brown paper wrapper. He took it out and looked up to see Greta watching him curiously.

“It’s a wrapper from the ice dispenser in the village,” he said. “The ice may still be here—” He dropped the wrapper back into the trash and opened the freezer compartment of the refrigerator. Trench was a neat housekeeper. Inside was a deep glass tray filled with cubes. “So Trench really did go to the village,” he mused.

“Of course he did!” Greta said. “Don’t you think Steve checked his story before he went on the witness stand? The house was open, Jaime. Just as Steve told the jury. It was open when I came and found Sheilah—”

“On the floor,” Jaime said. “With blood on the side of her face. A thin trickle of blood that ran down to her chin.”

“Yes,” Greta said, “but anyone could have come in, Jaime. Anyone but you!”

Loyalty was touching, but a memory should be complete. Truth was still a bouncing ball of memory just beyond reach. Greta clutched the highball glass like a beggar with a cup. He took it from her hand.

“What were you saying about the glass?” he asked.

“One of the set is missing,” she said. “There should be eight of them. There’s only seven.”

“Maybe I smashed it with the poker.”

“But you didn’t. I looked. You smashed the seltzer bottle.”

“Then there were only seven glasses in the set.”

“I sent
eight
glasses. You know that. You paid for them. Jaime”—Greta’s voice took on a tone of awe—”someone used that glass. If we find it, won’t there be fingerprints?”

“There may be another place for trash,” Jaime said. “Maybe Trench broke it and didn’t want Sheilah to know.”

“I’ll find out.” Greta was excited. She was still resisting what Jaime had told her with every alternative that came to mind. Before he could stop her she took down the wall phone and dialed.

“Hello—Steve? Oh, I thought I heard Steve’s voice. No, it’s you I want to talk to, Trench. This is Greta Dodson. I’m in Sheilah’s house…. Never mind how I got here. I want you to tell me something. Those glasses I sent Sheilah—how many were in the box? … Eight? None broken? … What did you do with them?”

Jaime watched her face. She was talking too fast. She was too tense. She was trying too hard to cover her fear. Loyalty was a strange thing.

She replaced the phone and turned to him, excitedly. “There were eight glasses,” she said, “and none was broken. Trench put them all out on the bar. Jaime, a highball glass doesn’t just disappear!”

“Sheilah was dead,” Jaime said. “I remember that now. I remember looking down at her on the floor.”

Greta didn’t answer.

Jaime capitulated. “All right, let’s look.”

Sheilah was a perfectionist. A dinner party, even on short notice, meant the house would be spotless. The rooms were few—large and sparsely furnished. Sheilah liked a spatial quality. It made the search easier—but still fruitless. They proceeded from room to room, leaving a blaze of light behind them, until the last room was Sheilah’s with its balcony overlooking the sea.

Jaime slid back the door. It gave easily: there was no lock. The balcony was inaccessible from the beach. The sunset cast a warm red glow on the outer world and revealed a deck on which was neither furniture nor one delinquent highball glass.

Reluctantly he stepped back inside and pulled the door shut. It didn’t catch. He applied pressure, but something was in the way. He knelt down and examined the track.

“What is it?” Greta asked.

Jaime came to his feet holding a sliver of glass in his hand. “You’re the expert on imported crystal,” he said. “What do you make of this?”

It was a small convex triangle that had apparently wedged into the rubber lining of the frame and had been dislodged only when Jaime opened the door. He held it before her between finger and thumb.

“Look!” she cried. “It’s cut! It has a part of the initial!”

It was a part of Sheilah’s missing glass. They searched the doorframe. Jaime picked up a few fragments on the end of his finger. Nothing more.

“Whoever broke the glass picked up the pieces,” Jaime said, “but was it before or after …?”

He didn’t explain what he meant. He shoved open the door and went out onto the balcony again. The railing was wood frame and lateral siding extending three feet above the balcony floor.

“It was still daylight,” he said. “The preparations were in the kitchen—”

“Jaime, please—what are you talking about?” Greta asked.

“About a mind … and the tricks it can play … and the way it always tells the truth in spite of the tricks …” Suddenly animated, Jaime leaped to the top of the railing.

“Jaime! Don’t!” Greta cried.

“There’s only one way out of Sheilah’s bedroom,” he said, and then he jumped. One instant he was poised on the railing; the next there was only the red sky and the darkening sea beneath. Greta ran to the rail. Jaime was crumpled on the sand below. Then he moved; his feet threshed wildly for footing in the sliding sand and he began to roll, slowly, grotesquely toward the sea.

“Jaime!” Greta screamed.

Behind her, the telephone was ringing. Sharp, commanding. She looked for Jaime again, but now he’d rolled out of sight under the overhang. Jaime was gone. The telephone was a present demand. She turned back and found the extension in Sheilah’s bedroom. It was Steve.

“Greta,” he said, “listen to me. I’ve been watching the house through my binoculars. I saw Jaime leap off the balcony…. You’re to leave the house—
now
. Do you understand?”

“No!” Greta said. “Jaime may be hurt!”

“He’s not hurt—not yet. Greta, for God’s sake believe me! There’s something about Jaime that you don’t know—something he doesn’t know. But he’s going to find out in a very few minutes…. I’m leaving for Sheilah’s house as soon as I hang up. If you care for Jaime at all, meet me on the path.”

Steve gave her no chance to answer. A sharp click terminated the connection. The house was silent … empty … ablaze with light. A spacious, immaculate mausoleum. Greta dropped the telephone back in the cradle and ran….

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.

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—”