The Deceivers (29 page)

“I fell.”

“Pet, did you fall heavily against Bucky’s right fist?”

He slowly poured the last of his beer into the glass and watched the head form itself. “Molly, I don’t want to be rude. I don’t want to accuse you of anything you have no idea of doing. But one very important thing right now is that Joan should not be disturbed or upset by having … odd coincidences called to her attention.”

She was very still, and then she put her hand on his. “You poor guy! I was afraid it was true. I was hoping it wasn’t.”

“It’s beginning to look as if I should have hired one of those skywriting outfits and published a running account at about ten thousand feet.”

“You aren’t the type for intrigue, pet. Neither is Cindy. You were silly clumsy lambs. And you’ve done a hell of a lot of damage.”

“But Joan …”

“Don’t fret about that. She won’t get a clue from me. I’ll alert Marie in the morning to brush off the Stockland woman firmly if she tries to show.” The phone rang. He hurried in and answered it.

It was from the news room of a Hillton paper. The man on the line was persistent. Carl gave him as much information about Bucky as he could, and when the reporter wanted to talk to the widow, Carl told him that was impossible.

He said, “Mrs. Cable wasn’t given any details of the accident. Do you have any more?”

“Just what we got on the wire. He took off into bad weather last night, and he couldn’t climb over a storm front, apparently, so he tried to sneak under it into Wichita before it closed down on him. He could have been hedgehopping and didn’t see the power line, or a downdraft could have pushed him into it. When he hit, he went off like a torch.”

“Will that be in the paper, the part about burning?”

“Not like I said it, but it will be in.”

“Thanks. I wouldn’t want Mrs. Cable to see that.”

“It won’t get any big spread. It’ll be a small page one box maybe, but probably page one of the second section. We got a cut of him here from back when he won some kind of sales award.”

Carl said good night to Molly and crossed the back yards. He paused near the red maple and touched the bark with his hand, and had a sudden furious and ridiculous impulse to get the hatchet from the garage and cut it down.

Joan was asleep with the light on when he walked into the bedroom, but she awoke immediately. He went and brushed his teeth again, and when he was in bed with the light out he told her how it had been, and what had been done.

He was awake long after she had gone back to sleep, unable to relax, unable to steer his mind away from Cindy. It was impossible to avoid thinking of it all as punishment for evil, to avoid the superstitious feeling that some implacable fate had meted out this penalty for evil. Yet the penalty seemed out of proportion to the sin. Death and the lost children and the threat of madness. Just as he was finally drifting into sleep he remembered his forgotten promise to call the kids and tell them their mother was home and doing well. And that kept him awake for another half hour, thinking of the effect on the kids should Joan learn of his affair with Cindy. He did not imagine they would separate. But the warmth and closeness and the trust would be gone. They could go through the motions, but the children would not be deceived. It would be a different kind of house, a different kind of family. Had it been a quick and careless thing involving an unknown woman in a far place, it might have made
a flaw in the marriage that in time would become imperceptible. But this was too close. And, from Joan’s viewpoint, too humiliating. She would remember both of them visiting her in the hospital, and she would feel that they had made a fool of her. She would remember Cindy welcoming her home, Cindy looking so radiant, his lie about the fall, his lie about Gil Sullivan. All his lies. And she could never really believe any statement, no matter how vehement, that she had not been betrayed right here in this house, in this place upon which she had expended so much care and thought and love. It would be soiled for her. Beyond repair. With the empathy that can be attained in darkness, he put himself in her mind—and found how easily he could despise Carl Garrett.

   He checked with Molly before he went to work on Wednesday morning. Cindy had awakened at six. She had acted so remote and listless that it had made Molly uncomfortable. She had given Cindy two of the pills and she was sleeping again. She seemed sound enough asleep so that Molly came over to the house with him to see Joan for a few minutes and quietly instruct Marie about what visitors should be permitted. Carl reminded Molly about disposing of the morning paper. He had read the short item in a page one box at breakfast: “Gilbert Cable, aged 32, local resident and sales executive, met flaming death at eleven-forty last night when his private single-engine aircraft struck high tension lines fifteen miles northeast of Wichita, Kansas, on the outskirts of the village of Potwin, and threw half of Butler County into darkness. A scorched briefcase thrown clear of the crash provided provisional identification until, through the registration numbers of the airplane, it was found that he had obtained flight clearance at the Hillton Airport at seven-thirty yesterday evening. Mr. Cable was traveling alone on a routine business trip in the private aircraft he used to cover his large territory, and it is believed that bad weather conditions were a contributing factor. He is survived by …”

Dr. Madden moved Cindy Cable to the Proctor Rest Home in the pleasant hilly country twelve miles west of Hillton on Wednesday afternoon. Molly Raedek closed the Cable house at 12 Barrow Lane, and left the keys with Joan.

On Wednesday Carl Garrett was able to work with a concentrated attention that he would not have thought possible. But he took little satisfaction in being able to do so, as he realized that it was a way in which he could avoid any thought about anything but the work at hand, and thus became a desirable type of oblivion. And he suspected that such intensity might well become habitual with him from now on.

At four in the afternoon he phoned Bob Eldon at his downtown office in Hillton and made an appointment for five-thirty. Bob said, “It’s a damn shame about Bucky. He was one of those guys you think of as indestructible. I’ve been trying to get in touch with Cindy but without luck so far.”

“Dr. Madden put her in the Proctor Rest Home. She isn’t in very good shape.”

“That’s a damn shame. Bucky’s affairs are in pretty good order. It won’t be much of a chore to wind up the estate. The Hillton Bank and Trust is named in the will as executor, and there’s nothing that should present any problem to the probate court. There really isn’t much to be gained by an appointment at this stage, Carl.”

“There’s something you don’t know about.”

“Oh. Well, then, I’ll be right here at five-thirty.”

Carl phoned Joan and told her he would be late, and arrived at Eldon’s office on time. It was a large law firm and most of the offices had emptied out by that time. The receptionist was just leaving as Carl arrived. She told him to go on back, the third door on the left. Mr. Eldon was expecting him.

Bob Eldon, the Eldon of Conway, Bright, Carey and Eldon, was a man who managed to look much closer to thirty than to his actual age of forty-four. He was lean and elegant and blond, with a small blond mustache and weak blue eyes, and
a wispy off-hand manner that was in sharp contrast to the quickness of the hidden mind. He came around his desk and shook hands with Carl and seated him in a leather chair beside the desk.

“Hell of a note,” he said.

“I know. Can you tell me how well fixed he left Cindy without violating any confidences?”

“She won’t be hurting. Bucky made good money and he was a shrewd man with a buck. His insurance program was sound and he’s covered for the kind of accident he had. He made a new will recently, and it’s set up to allow a minimum tax bite. I know he recently set up educational policies for the kids. I don’t know how much stock he has, but I know he was buying it carefully. She should come out of it, all things considered, somewhere in the neighborhood of six thousand a year, which is pretty damn good for a man of thirty-two to leave her. The bulk of it will be from his heavy insurance program. She’ll have enough to raise the kids and see them through school. And I wouldn’t make any bets about her not marrying again. Now what is this I don’t know about?”

Carl hesitated, and said, “It’s … pretty personal. And unpleasant.”

“And a privileged communication. So don’t sweat.”

He told the story. He told it haltingly at first, trying to be utterly factual, making no attempt to color it in order to be less hard on himself. When he stood up and went to the window and talked while he watched the traffic three stories below, he found the words came easier. He repeated as accurately as possible Bucky’s father’s pronouncement, and Bernie Madden’s pessimistic appraisal of Cindy’s potential condition. He was glad when it was over. He sat in the chair again. He avoided Bob Eldon’s eyes. His face felt hot.

“A very gaudy little tale, Carl. You both seem a little miscast somehow. What’s your problem?”

“Can she get her kids away from them?”

“Some of that will depend on how shrewd Mr. Cable’s lawyer is, and how much detail Bucky told them over the phone, and how much they remember of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“It sounds as if Bucky was crucifying himself by giving the gory details of how he came to be wearing the horns. Suppose he mentioned the name of the motel. If I happened to be working for Mr. Cable, I would employ a reliable investigation firm to get the facts, the motel registration, a
statement from the manager, a statement from the state cops who took down your name and address, a statement from that doctor. I’d want a transcript of telephone company records to show exactly when Bucky called his parents. Through the statements of witnesses, I’d get a positive identification of Cindy as the woman in the picture. Then, with all my ammunition in hand, I’d pay a call on Cindy. I’d tell her that if she wants to avoid a stink, she can sign this harmless little paper that relinquishes her children to their grandparents. If she doesn’t want to sign, we will petition the court for custody of the children, claiming their mother is an immoral influence, and make a stench that will kill shrubbery for miles around.”

“And would they get the kids?”

“They might. And they might not. It would depend on the judge. In such cases there are many judges who feel that small children are better off with their natural mother, particularly if it can be shown, as Cindy can show, that she can support them adequately. Also, the attitude of the children is considered. But on the other hand the judge might be one of those self-styled men of unbending honor who justify a cruel and inequitable decision on the basis of moral righteousness. However, the chances of her keeping them will be very slight indeed if Bucky confirmed his telephone conversation by a letter to them. The court would be inclined to listen to the wishes of the dead betrayed father rather than to the wishes of the woman who betrayed him. We can hope such a letter wasn’t written.”

“Do you think … Cindy should have them?”

“Of course.”

“Is it possible that they could dig up any other blemishes on Cindy’s record?”

“I … I don’t know. She had an affair before she was married. I believe she lived with the man for a time. In New York.”

“But nothing since her marriage that you know of. Except this situation.”

“I would swear there hadn’t been anything else.”

“If, through the load of guilt Dr. Madden mentioned, Cindy should go off her rocker, it could blow up her chance of getting her kids back.”

“Bob, will you … see what you can do?”

“I’ve already started.”

“What is there that … I could do?”

Eldon studied him for a few moments. “Nothing that you’d care to do, I’m afraid. Nothing that you should be asked to do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Suppose it gets to the point of a hearing. With luck it might be a private hearing in the judge’s chambers, but we can’t count on that. It occurred to me that I could pull something real wild. I might be able to introduce you as a character witness for Cindy. When you told me your little story, you came through strongly as a decent and troubled and penitent man. You are certainly no wolf. You might make exactly the right impression that would swing it her way. But you say your wife doesn’t know, and it’s possible she may never find out. Suppose it was an open hearing. She’d have to know. It would clobber her, and maybe clobber you in your job. You can’t tell when a corporation will turn righteous. But I won’t ask you to do that, Carl. It’s too damn much to ask of any man.”

“What will you do next?”

“Talk to Cindy and get her okay to go ahead. Then look up the law and find out how other decisions went. Get the actual machinery clear in my mind. Maybe we should attack, and petition for the immediate return of the children to their rightful mother. I’ll decide that after I do the research. This custody of minor children is a poorly defined and unpleasant area of the law. It could be that such an action on our part might result in the children being turned over to a public institution until such time as the question of custody can be determined. And if it dragged on too long, it might put quite a deep mark on those kids. But, on the other hand, maybe the old boy will reconsider.”

“If you’d heard him, you’d know that will never happen.”

Eldon took his hat, closed his office door and walked down the hallway with Carl and went down in the elevator with him. They paused for a moment on the sidewalk. Eldon punched him lightly on the biceps and said, “It isn’t the end of the world, Carl. I admit this has its seamy side, but compared to another case I’m on, this one is as remarkable as a garden party, believe me.”

“I want to be the client in this thing, Bob. I mean I want to pay for it.”

“You’re not a party with a direct interest. She’ll be my client. But I’ll let you pay if you feel you need that sort of a gesture.”

After Carl and Joan had dinner, Carl phoned Bernie Madden and asked him how Cindy was and when he could see her.