Born Innocent (28 page)

She saw a small, dim kitchen and she saw open boxes on the floor, half-filled with kitchen utensils.

She also saw Verna, standing about four feet away from the door. Verna wasn’t wearing the housecoat Claire had expected. Instead, she was fully dressed, and in her shaking hands she held a small revolver. The gun was pointed straight at Claire.

Verna said, “I guess you better come in.”

Claire held her breath and wondered what her chances were of making a run for it.

“
Don’t even think it.” Verna gestured with the gun. “Come in and close that door.”

“
All right. Take it easy.” Slowly, Claire pushed the door open enough to slide through it. Then she closed it gently behind her.

“
Keep your hands where I can see them.”

Claire raised her hands in the air. “Okay. Now what?”

“
Just...shut up. Just let me think.” Verna’s hands—and the gun she was pointing at Claire—kept shaking. Claire tried not to imagine what would happen if one of her fingers slipped.

Verna gestured with the gun some more. “Okay. In there.” She circled around until she was between Claire and the door. Then she herded Claire through the doorway that
led to the front room. Claire had to step over more halffilled open boxes to get through the kitchen.

“
Sit down,” Verna instructed when Claire had moved fully into the front room and stood near a faded, floral-patterned couch. Claire didn’t argue. She nudged aside a box with tissue paper sticking out of it and sat at one end of the couch. Verna lowered herself into a heavily padded reclining chair across from her.

The women regarded each other.

The room was very warm. Claire could feel the sweat, partly from the heat and partly from her own fear, breaking out on her brow, her upper lip and beneath her arms.

Verna was sweating, too. And her hands, which still held the gun trained on Claire, were also still shaking. Claire had the terrifying urge to ask, What are you going to do with me? She held it back.

Verna looked more than merely desperate. Something inside her seemed to have snapped. There was a rim of white around her mouth. Her eyes had a wild, trapped gleam. Claire already knew what Verna was going to do with her, even if Verna didn’t yet quite know herself.

Claire’s elbow nudged the tissue paper that spilled out of the box beside her. It made a soft, crackling sound.

Verna spoke up. “Yeah, I’m packing,” she said impatiently, as if in answer to a question that Claire had never uttered aloud. “I’m leaving. But I’m having a hard time deciding what to take. My car’s not very big. I’ll have to leave a few things.”

Claire nodded. What should she do? Humor this wildeyed stranger who seemed, somehow, to be no longer the Verna she knew? This woman who held Claire’s life—and the secret life of a tiny baby—in her quivering, sweaty hands? She supposed it was worth a shot.

“
Yes, I... imagine it’s difficult. Making up your mind.”

Verna’s mad eyes narrowed. “I know you blame me. Don’t pretend you don’t.” Her voice went plaintive. “But what was I supposed to do? They thought it was you, and I let them go ahead and think that. What else could I do? I didn’t want to go to jail. But this... acting like nothing happened, it’s making me, I don’t know, crazy. I have to get out.”

Claire, who was trying not to think of what she saw in store for herself when she looked into Verna’s exhausted, mad eyes, asked carefully, “You’re talking about what happened with Alan?”

Verna scrunched up her face. “What else is there? Of course. What happened with Alan. Don’t play stupid. You know. I know you know.”

Claire swallowed. “Yes. I do. I understand. About Alan.”

Verna made a short, tight noise. The madness in her eyes receded a little; they were suddenly brimming with injured tears. “What was I supposed to do? What did he think I’d do?”

Claire ventured, “You loved him...”

Verna’s eyes grew feverishly bright. “Yes, yes. You know. You understand. I loved him. I’m...not young. Not pretty. I was never pretty. I met Martin. We married. He was a good man. We had a good life, even though the... children never came. And then he died. And I thought, well, that’s it. That was all of it. You’ve had what you will have. But then...”

“
You met Alan.”

“
Yes. Alan.” Verna smiled, a dreamy smile. She still held the gun on Claire, but she had relaxed a little. Her hands were steady now. “I met Alan. And life was... new again. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me, of all people. That magic, that loveliness. But it was. I loved him from the first morning when I tapped on the door of the bungalow and he stuck his head out and smiled. He said, ‘Hello there, come
right in....’He was wearing a maroon silk robe, with his initials on it. He was fresh from his shower, and the room smelled of his after-shave. I was embarrassed at first. I asked him if maybe I should come back later, when he was dressed. But he said he was making coffee. Would I like a cup... ?”

Verna’s dreamy voice faded. She rested her head against the high back of her chair. Her eyes drooped, and the hand with the weapon in it began to droop in the same way.

Claire watched the gun, as the hand that held it softly drifted down to rest on the arm of the recliner. If she moved swiftly, propelled herself straight across at the other woman, and then knocked the gun...

Verna’s eyes shot open and her head snapped erect. “Don’t move. Don’t get ideas.” Once again, Claire found herself looking down the round, gray mouth of the quivering gun.

“
I haven’t,” Claire assured her. “I won’t.”

“
Good. Where was I?”

“
He, um, offered you coffee.”

“
Oh, God.” Verna wiped sweat from her brow with her free hand. “Yes. He offered me coffee. And I shouldn’t have, but I said yes. Yes, yes, yes...” Verna’s eyes went dreaming again, but this time she kept them wide open and the gun remained pointed straight at Claire’s heart. Verna blinked. “After things became... intimate—” she blushed “—he said we had to be
discreet
about us, that he had a few things going on here in town that would be ruined if anyone knew about us.”

Verna sighed. “Of course, I knew what he meant. He was trying to get something going with you. But I also knew you never looked at anyone but Joe Tally. So I knew that would pass. And Alan and me would leave town together, eventually. So I met him in secret. It was easy, since I cleaned his room five days a week. And you never checked on me. You
trusted me. I was a dependable employee. I don’t think a soul in the whole town knew what was going on.”

The dreamy look in Verna’s eyes began to fade. “I gave him everything, the whole twenty-five thousand I had left from Martin’s insurance. He was supposed to be investing it for me. He said he knew a way to double it in a year.”

Claire shook her head, feeling compassion for Verna in spite of her own plight. She knew the rest without hearing it. “Oh Lord, Verna. I’m sorry....”

Another tight sound escaped the plain woman in the reclining chair—a sound between a mad bark of laughter and a sob. “Right. So am I. Oh, God, so am I. I was such a fool.” Now Verna seemed unable to remain still. She stood up. “Don’t you move.”

“
I won’t.”

Still keeping the gun trained on Claire, Verna skirted an open box in the middle of the floor and went to the window by the front door. She peered around the comer of the shade. Then she turned back to Claire. “God. I can’t believe how stupid I was. When you told me that night that he was leaving, I still thought everything was fine. I thought that
we
were leaving. I left the office and went straight to him... and he told me the
truth.
”

Verna’s face twisted up again, and her voice grew thin. “He was packing already, planning to just skip out...by himself. He tried to sweet talk me a little, but only a little. He didn’t even put much effort into covering up the truth. And the truth was that I was nothing...
nothing
to him. And, as for my money. ..he just gave me that grin of his. My money was safe with him, he said. He’d be in touch....”

Verna sucked in a long breath, steadying herself. The mad light in her eyes blazed up once again. “I left. I was going to come back here, get my own gun, and go tell him if he didn’t want
me,
that was fine. But he’d better give me my money, or else. But I passed the office, and I thought about
that gun you always kept behind the desk, and I had my key with me....”

Slowly, Verna approached the couch where Claire sat. Claire tried to keep eye contact with her, though all she thought of was the neat, round mouth of the gun.

“
And the rest, well, I guess you can figure it out for yourself. I—I didn’t plan to shoot him, though. I didn’t. I
loved
him. But even when I pointed the gun at him and told him to give me my money back, he went on smiling. And it was too much, just too much. I pulled the trigger. He fell against the dresser. When he hit the floor, he didn’t move... I thought he was dead, I swear it. So I got out of there.

“
I waited, all night. I almost went crazy with waiting. And then in the morning, I had to go up to the schoolyard and get the damn
float
ready.”

She loosed a mad snort of laughter and backed up a few feet, recoiling at the memory of what she’d been through. “Can you believe it? I’d shot the man I loved, and I had to be in charge of the Snow’s Inn Independence Day float!” She turned, a fraction, toward the recliner. “And then, just after the damn parade, the news hit. It was all over town. You’d found him, and he
wasn’t
dead. He was in a coma. My God, a
coma
... ”

Now Verna began to cry, huge, soggy tears that streamed down her face and dribbled into her mouth, over her chin, everywhere. Her nose ran. She sobbed, deep, hiccuping sobs.

“
Oh, Verna...” Claire seized the moment when Verna’s guilt and regret totally controlled her. She stood up.

“
Stop. Stop right there.” Verna wiped at her nose with the back of her hand and waved the gun wildly at Claire. “I told you not to move!”

“
But Verna—”

“
Shut up. You just...shut up. You...you shouldn’t have come here. You shouldn’t have, Claire. You didn’t leave me any choice, coming here.”

Claire put up her hands. “Verna, it’s over. Face facts. If you shoot me, there’ll be no one to pin it on. They’ll figure out this time that it’s you.”

“
I’ll be long gone.”

“
You can’t hide forever. Think, Verna. You don’t even have any money, you said so yourself...”

“
I’ll steal it. I’m a criminal now, I’ll do what I have to do. That’s how it is these days. Women like me don’t have any choice.” The gun wavered again, and Verna looked as if she might crumple. “Oh, how did all this happen? Oh, Lord. What should I do?”

“
Give me the gun, Verna.” Claire stepped closer, hoping against hope that, for once in this whole mess surrounding Alan Henson, luck would be with her. If only she could disarm the other woman before Verna actually fired.

Verna continued to back away. She had cleared the recliner. Behind her was the open packing box she’d skirted earlier to go to the window. “No, you step back now. Don’t you come any closer. I mean it, Claire. I’m warning you...” Verna steadied the gun. Claire saw her own fate in Verna’s bright, mad eyes just as Verna took one more step backward—and lost her balance when her heel hit the box.

The contents of the box clanged and rattled. Verna teetered. Claire bent at the knees and launched herself at Verna’s legs.

Both women hit the floor. “Oof,” Verna said.

And the gun went off—a deafening crack in the close, hot room.

The shot went wild, and Claire writhed up the length of Verna’s body, grabbing for Verna’s wrist. Her fingers closed around it. She squeezed, in an attempt to wrest the weapon from the other woman’s moist hand.

“
Don’t you.. .I’ll get you...” Verna muttered between soft, intent grunts and groans.

Claire didn’t speak. She was fighting for her life and the life of her unborn child against a bigger, heavier opponent. As the two of them wrestled frantically for control of the gun, Claire tried to keep the top position.

But Verna was bigger, and she used her weight to advantage. With a heavy grunt, she got their struggling bodies turning.

And then Verna was the one on top. She scowled down at Claire. Then she lunged back and pointed the gun in Claire’s face. Claire saw the small, round mouth of death.

Somehow, she managed to free an arm and knock Verna’s arm up and out just as the gun fired again. The shot exploded. Beneath the ringing in her ears, Claire heard one of the windows by the front door shatter. Glass tinkled and chimed as it hit the screen, and then slid out beneath the shade to pepper the floor beside the door.