Double Indemnity

Chapter 10

Right on top of that, Phyllis filed her claim. Keyes denied liability, on the ground that accident hadn't been proved. Then she filed suit, through the regular lawyer that had always handled her husband's business. She called me about half a dozen times, always from a drugstore, and I told her what to do. I had got so I felt sick the minute I heard her voice, but I couldn't take any chances. I told her to be ready, that they would try to prove something besides suicide. I didn't give her all of it, what they were thinking and what they were doing, but I let her know that murder was one of the things they would cover anyway, so she had better be ready for it when she went on the stand. It didn't faze her any. She seemed to have almost forgotten that there was a murder, and acted like the company was playing her some kind of a dirty trick in not paying her right away. That suited me fine. It was a funny sidelight on human nature, and especially on a woman's nature, but it was just exactly the frame of mind I would want her in to face a lot of corporation lawyers. If she stuck to her story, even with all Keyes might have been able to dig up on her, I still didn't see how she could miss.

That all took about a month, and the suit was to come up for trial in the early fall. All during that month, three or four nights a week, I was seeing Lola. I would call for her, at the little apartment house where she was living, and we would go to dinner, and then for a drive. She had got a little car, but we generally went in mine. I had gone completely nuts about her. Having it hanging over me all the time, what I had done to her, and how awful it would be if she ever found out, that had something to do with it, but it wasn't all. There was something so sweet about her, and we got along so nice, I mean we felt so happy when we were together. Anyway I did. She did too, I knew that. But then one night something happened. We were parked on the ocean road, about three miles above Santa Monica. They have places where you can park and sit and look. We were sitting there, watching the moon come up over the ocean. That sounds funny, don't it, that you can watch the moon come up over the Pacific Ocean? You can, just the same. The coast here runs almost due east and west, and when the moon comes up, off to your left, it's pretty as a picture. As soon as it lifted out of the sea, she slipped her hand into mine. It took it, but she took it away, quick.

"I mustn't do that."

"Why not?"

"Lots of reasons. It's not fair to you, for one."

"Did you hear me squawk?"

"You do like me, don't you?"

"I'm crazy about you."

"I'm pretty crazy about you too, Walter. I don't know what I'd have done without you these last few weeks. Only-"

"Only what?"

"Are you sure you want to hear? It may hurt you."

"Better hear it than guess at it."

"It's about Nino."

"Yes?"

"I guess he still means a lot to me."

"Have you seen him?"

"No."

"You'll get over it. Let me be your doctor. I'll guarantee a cure. Just give me a little time, and I'll promise to have you all right."

"You're a nice doctor. Only-"

"Another 'only'?"

"I did see him."

"Oh."

"No, I was telling the truth just now. I haven't talked with him. He doesn't know I've seen him. Only-"

"You sure have a lot of 'only's'."

"Walter-"

She was getting more and more excited, and trying not to let me see it.

"-He didn't do it!"

"No?"

"This is going to hurt you terribly, Walter. I can't help it. You may as well know the truth. I followed them last night. Oh, I've followed them a lot of times, I've been insane. Last night, though, was the first time I ever got a chance to hear what they were saying. They went up to the Lookout and parked, and I parked down below, and crept up behind them. Oh, it was horrible enough. He told her he had been in love with her from the first, but felt it was hopeless-until this happened. But that wasn't all. They talked about money. He's spent all of that you let him have, and still he hasn't got his degree. He paid for his dissertation, but the rest he spent on her. And he was talking about where he'd get more. Listen, Walter-"

"Yes?"

"If they had done this together, she'd have to let him have money, wouldn't she?"

"Looks like it."

"They never even mentioned anything about her letting him have money. My heart began to beat when I realized what that meant. And then they talked some more. They were there about an hour. They talked about lots of things, and I could tell, from what they said, that he wasn't in on it, and didn't know anything about it. I could tell! Walter, do you realize what that means? He didn't do it!"

She was so excited her fingers felt like steel, where they were clutched around my arm. I couldn't follow her. I could see that she meant something, something a whole lot more important than that Sachetti was innocent.

"I don't quite get it, Lola. I thought you had given up the idea that anybody was in on it."

"I'll never give it up…Yes, I did give it up, or try to. But that was only because I thought if there was something like that, he must have been in on it, and that would have been too terrible. If he had anything to do with it, I knew it couldn't be that. I had to know it, to believe it. But now-oh no, Walter, I haven't given it up. She did it, somehow. I know it. And now, I'll get her. I'll get her for it, if it's the last thing I do."

"How?"

"She's suing your company, isn't she? She even has the nerve to do that. All right. You tell your company not to worry. I'll come and sit right alongside of you, Walter. I'll tell them what to ask her. I'll tell them-"

"Wait a minute, Lola, wait a minute-"

"I'll tell them everything they need to know. I told you there was plenty more, besides what I told you. I'll tell them to ask her about the time I came in on her, in her bedroom, with some kind of foolish red silk thing on her, that looked like a shroud or something, with her face all smeared up with white powder and red lipstick, with a dagger in her hand, making faces at herself in front of a mirror-oh yes, I'll tell them to ask her about that. I'll tell them to ask her why she was down in a boulevard store, a week before my father died, pricing black dresses. That's something she doesn't know I know. I went in there about five minutes after she left. The saleslady was just putting the frocks away. She was telling me what lovely numbers they were, only she couldn't understand why Mrs. Nirdlinger would be considering them, because they were really mourning. That was one reason I wanted my father to take that trip, so I could get him out of the house and find out what she was up to. I'll tell them-"

"But wait a minute, Lola. You can't do that. Why-they can't ask her such things as that-"

"If they can't I can! I'll stand right up in court and yell them at her. I'll be heard! No judge, no policeman, or anybody-can stop me. I'll force it out of her if I have to go up there and choke it out of her. I'll make her tell! I'll not be stopped!"