Ellery Queen. The Best of Suspense

Jean L. Backus Last Rendezvous

I resented the old woman’s approach, not having driven 150 miles along a rugged coast highway to be an unwilling dinner partner at Little River Inn. Particularly so early in my short stay. But I’d been told thirty or forty years ago that a lady was always kind to old people since she herself would be old one day, and perhaps unhappy and lonely as well. Now my time had come, and I had no need to be reminded of my age and circumstances. But as usual I hated to be in the position of rejecting anyone.

“No,” I said, as she stood waiting by my table, “nobody’s with me. I’m alone.” Which was the solitary truth — family dead, friends dead or moved away, everyone I’d ever loved gone.

“It’s not good for a woman to eat by herself,” she said, sitting in the opposite chair. “And that makes two of us. What are you drinking?”

“Gin and tonic, no fruit.” Even then I should have told her I was in a poor mood for company, because her voice and gestures jangled my nerve ends. I looked at her more closely. Short gray hair, carelessly brushed, a blue pants suit, wrinkled and slightly soiled; she looked neglected. My own hair was white, but so far I had not neglected my appearance.

“Why, that’s what I drink too,” she said, beaming. “I’ll have one tonight, I think. Where are you from?”

“The Bay Region.”

“I used to live there,” she said. “I live here now. This is as close to a home as I’ll ever get, unless they put me in the booby hatch someday. What are you going to eat?”

“Petrale sole.” I’d stayed at the inn and dined in this room at this table before. Tonight the sole, tomorrow night the salmon. The next morning I’d be gone, leaving behind all that was precious and good in my life. Only memories now, but once a man had sat opposite me at this table, he down from the north, I up from the south.

For fourteen years we’d met every other month for a weekend together, walking on the beach at the mouth of the river, driving around the headland to watch the surf on the rocks at sunset, and retiring to the same cottage after a superb and leisurely dinner.

“And apricot cobbler.” I spoke aloud, out of my thoughts.

“We have rhubarb cobbler tonight,” the hostess said at my side. And to the woman across from me, “Miss Barnes, did you ask the lady if she minded your sitting with her?”

“Yes, I did.” Miss Barnes flushed unbecomingly. “She didn’t tell me I couldn’t.”

I said, “Perhaps you’ll excuse me after all. I intend to eat very slowly tonight, and I have something serious to think about.” Immediately I wished I’d kept still. Miss Barnes looked about to weep. But it was too late. The hostess, after a prolonged argument, led her away to another table, somewhere behind me.

The waitress brought me a bowl of clam chowder, and normally I’d have savored every spoonful. As it was, I could hardly swallow. By the time the salad arrived, however, my thoughts were back on Jim and how he’d always ordered oil and vinegar while I took the roquefort dressing.

Food had been one of the things we had in common, although he was married, a drygoods merchant in Eureka, while I was single, a librarian from Concord. I had hobbies and friends, I kept up with the news and theaters and concerts, I read a lot; I was fairly well content. When I met him, he had no interest beyond his work and his children, whom he adored and for whom he maintained the semblance of a marriage. Periodically he had to get away from his wife, and one time we turned up separately here at the inn. Our rooms happened to be next to each other, and on our way to dinner we collided as we locked our doors.

But we sat at separate tables to eat. I certainly hadn’t thought of a possible friendship, much less an affair, on that first meeting. Yet, as we acknowledged later, both of us felt the impact of looking at a stranger and thinking how nice it would be if we could have been together.

Call it luck as I did, or fate as Jim did, we kept colliding all the next day — in the village, up Fern Canyon, and finally on the headland at sunset. “This is silly,” Jim said as he left his car to come sit in mine. “Tomorrow let’s spend the day together.”

It took another accidental weekend before I accepted what Jim said had been obvious and inevitable to him from the beginning. Probably it was his immediate honesty about his family situation that persuaded me to let my unexpectedly insistent fantasies become a reality, because I was never in any doubt as to the source of his interest in me, and if I were honest, the source of my interest in him. We represented adventure without danger, excitement without consequences, love without responsibility...

Behind me, Miss Barnes asked for a doggie bag because her little dog was starving, she said, and anyway, she couldn’t cat all her sole. Suddenly I couldn’t finish mine cither.

The hostess came to refill my water glass. “Sorry about that,” she said quietly. “Poor Miss Barnes has a habit of accosting the other guests, and tonight you were elected. It must be very annoying; I do apologize.”

“It’s all right,” I told her. “Only I feel sorry for her because she seems so lonely, and — well, isn’t she a bit out of touch?”

“Out of touch,” the hostess said. “She’s senile, poor thing. I’m afraid we’re going to have to do something about her.” I winced and covered it with a cough. Then she added, “Oh, you aren’t eating. Isn’t the fish all right?”

“It’s perfect, thank you.”

She nodded and moved away, while I took another bite of sole, remembering how Jim had always called it ambrosia and said we were the gods. Laying my fork down again, I got out a cigarette and my lighter.

“Could I have that little bit of fish you’re not going to eat?” Miss Barnes asked, right at my elbow. “It’s for my dog.”

“What about bones? I never give my dog fish for fear of his choking on a bone.”

“My dog eats anything I give her,” Miss Barnes said, holding her doggie bag open. Then she leaned closer, her voice barely audible. “That’s a lie. I want the fish for my lunch tomorrow. You see, retirement isn’t all it’s supposed to be these days.”

Silently I transferred the remnant of my sole to the doggie bag and was relieved when the waitress came to lead Miss Barnes back to her own table.

Thought of my own retirement, not so far off now, was so unnerving that I left the dessert, finished my coffee, and went out through the bar onto the long front porch of the old inn, with the rose vines climbing up to the wooden scrollwork of the gabled windows and eaves. In front was the parking area where my car stood among others, and beyond the highway running below the property were the rocks with the sea pounding the shore under the dark old windblown cypresses.

I considered what I wanted to do and decided to get my Sheltie and feed him before we walked down the hill to the beach.

Miss Barnes was right behind me. “Is your doggie with you?”

“Locked in the car.”

“Oh, dear, they say it’s dangerous leaving children and animals in locked cars.”

“I left the window partly open,” I said. “Anyway, I’m going to feed him now and then go to bed.”

Her smiled faded. “Oh, dear. I thought maybe you and I could go for a walk.”

“Not tonight.” And hastily I added, “Thanks.”

“I’m sorry.” Her eyes filled with weak tears. “I’m being tiresome, aren’t I? It’s a part of growing old not to know when you’re being tiresome. That and being retired. What about you? Are you retired?”

“Not yet.” But I would be. Any day now.

She shook her head. “You won’t find it easy when you do. People die or drop away from you, and finally you’re alone, with nothing but your regrets to sustain you.” She looked far out to sea where a fishing vessel was beating the waves back to port. “I was young once, you know, and there was a man who found me attractive. But nothing came of it.”

“Why not? Did you quarrel?”

“Oh, it was my fault.” She faced me, lips quivering. “You see, I didn’t trust him. He said he would leave his wife for me, but I thought he was just trying to — oh, you know. Then he died, and I discovered he’d gone ahead and started a divorce. If he’d lived, I think he would have come after me again. By the time I found out what I truly wanted, it was too late.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and helpless to comfort her, I escaped to my car, put Star on his leash, and took him to my room for his meal. He gobbled it as usual, finding no strange smell from the phenobarb I’d put in the food I’d brought from home.

When I was sure Miss Barnes had disappeared, I took Star down the path through the red alders and young firs, past the Oregon grape and elderberry bushes, and across the highway to the beach at the mouth of the river. Here the water was calm, and I let Star run in and out of the waves, his barking already muted and uncertain. He got all wet and shook himself feebly when I whistled him back and restored the leash.

He was my second Sheltie, Jim having given me both dogs to remind me of him during our separations, he said. When the first Star sickened and died, I was inconsolable and felt it was a bad omen. But Jim simply went out and bought the second puppy for me. Now the second Star was twelve years old and I couldn’t bear to see the way he was aging, because it was like a reflection of my own state.

We walked around to the point where I stood hypnotized by the surf pounding up and over the glistening black rocks and falling back, leaving ruffles of white foam...

“The seahorses are riding high tonight,” Jim said in my ear.

I felt his arm around me, and leaned back wanting only to preserve and extend the love and security he gave me. Wanting it harder and oftener as the years rolled by, worrying that he was tired of me, resenting the sterile two months between our weekends, frequently mistrusting his ultimate intentions. In this I was unreasonable, for I’d known from the beginning ours would be love without responsibility, but the force of resentment swept me along anyway.

And sensing this in me, he tried to make it all right again by saying, “Oh, God, I’d give my life to go south with you tomorrow.”

“Do it then.”

“I can’t. You know I can’t, not unless—”

“Not unless she divorces you, which she won’t, or the children become mature enough not to be damaged.” I threw back the words he always used whenever I spoke of the future. Not that I often did, because I respected his love for his children, his desire to protect them, or their image of him. But that didn’t prevent the slow rot of distrust from growing in my mind...

I sighed and turned to go, thinking of Miss Barnes. “I thought he was just trying to — oh, you know.”

My poor old Star came dragging after me, already asleep on his feet from what I’d put in his food. Finally I had to pick him up and carry him like a baby in my arms. He died an hour after I got back to my room, and I sat weeping all night because I lacked the courage to finish what I’d started.

When daylight came, I wrapped the body in a blanket and carried it out to the car where I placed it on the passenger seat. Then I sat beside him until it was time for the dining room to open.

I couldn’t eat, but the coffee helped, and so did being seated at the table near the fireplace where Jim and I had always sat. Until the last morning when I’d come here alone while he still slept in the cottage we’d shared for the past two nights.

Presently I went out to the car again, and with Star’s body beside me, drove off to visit our favorite headland and sit watching the water burst on the rocks for the rest of the day. I’d have given anything to bury Star there under a carpet of Indian paintbrush, lupines, and poppies, but it was public property.

I returned to the inn after sundown and had barely seated myself and ordered a drink in the dining room when Miss Barnes came to my table.

“Good evening,” she said, face aglow. “How’s your sweet little dog today? Not locked in the car again, I hope.”

“My dog? Star?” I swallowed. “Oh, he died last night.”

“Why, you poor thing! What happened?”

“Please. If you don’t mind, I can’t talk about it.”

“Of course not. I’ll sit down and keep you company—”

“Please don’t, Miss Barnes. Please leave me alone.”

The hostess heard me and led the old woman away.

I ordered the salmon and toyed with it. After refusing berry cobbler, I went straight to my room and sat down to wonder what I should do about Star’s body, which was still in the car. I couldn’t think where to take it, or whom to ask for help. All I could think about was poor old Miss Barnes, and how in a way I resembled her: not accosting strangers in the dining room, not yet; but inside, where it counted, and where I’d worked for eight long years to contain it. Now, if I could, I had to recall the last night Jim and I ever had together. Not as I would like to remember it, but as it really happened...

He had said that his wife was going to tell his children if he didn’t give me up.

“Oh, Jim, no! She wouldn’t.”

“Well, she said she would. And it will devastate the kids. The youngest isn’t quite fifteen, and I can’t stand even the thought of their disillusion and hurt.”

“What did you tell her then?”

“I said I’d think about it.”

He didn’t look at me as he spoke, and believing he’d already made his choice, I lost control. I said unspeakable things, made unreasonable accusations and threats. I was beside myself, and all the resentment and distrust in my festering mind came out until at last we faced each other, pale and shaking, utterly washed up, and we both knew it.

Jim was the first to break the silence. “Before I left home, I thought of another way, if you’re willing. I’d rather die with you than live without you.”

Shaken to my fibers, I finally agreed.

So we made our pact and went to bed for the last time, close and warm together as if nothing had changed. Only in the morning he didn’t wake up — and I did.

After weeping for a time, I’d gone for breakfast which I didn’t eat and driven straight home, a journey I don’t remember. Nobody ever came after me, though I presume his wife must have had difficulty convincing the authorities who she was because nobody would have recognized her as the woman who’d been registered as Jim’s wife so often at the cottage.

Later when I went to Eureka and read his obituary in the local paper, I discovered she’d had enough influence to hush up the circumstances. Death from a heart attack, the notice read. But it should have said murder, because at the last minute and without saying so to Jim, I had panicked and failed to keep the suicide pact we’d made...

I stirred at last, calm and not unhappy as I got the bottle and swallowed the rest of the phenobarb tablets Jim had handed me eight years ago on the night, when in my madness, I believed he intended that only I should die...

The story you have just read was nominated by MWA (Mystery Writers of America) as one of the five best new mystery short stories published in American magazines and books during 1977.