Sleeping Beauty

chapter 33

There was the sound of a car in the street. It stopped in front of the house, and Russo lifted his head.

“That’s Tom’s car now. I know cars. I had my own filling station until gasoline rationing set in back in the forties.” He spoke as if it had happened yesterday.

Tom came in and greeted his father with anxious solicitude. “How are you doing, Dad?”

“I’m all right. Why shouldn’t I be all right?”

“I didn’t mean to keep you waiting so long.”

“It’s okay. Mr. Archer and me had things to talk about.”

Tom turned to me. His eyes were wide, still full of the night outside. “Did you want to see me?”

“I have a few questions to ask you. Where have you been, by the way?”

“I dropped Gloria off. Then I did some driving around. I went to Pacific Point to find out if Laurel’s parents had heard anything. But there was nobody in the house.”

“Laurel’s father was shot this afternoon. He’s in the Pacific Point hospital, and his wife is with him.”

“Who shot him?”

“Harold Sherry.” I told Tom what had happened at the hunting club.

He sat on a hassock, leaning forward with his arms on his knees, his hands dangling limply, his eyes puzzled and hurt. I asked him if he had seen Harold. He shook his head.

“Do you know where he is, Tom?”

“Gloria asked me not to say.”

“Did Gloria know he was wanted by the police?”

The question jolted him. “No. I mean, if she did know she didn’t tell me.”

“What did she tell you?”

“He phoned her here. He said that he was injured. He didn’t say anything about a shooting. I thought it was an accident, and that was why he needed bandages.”

“Did you see him, Tom?”

“No. He didn’t want me to come into the motel.”

“Was it the Myrtle Motel, in Redondo Beach?”

He shook his head. “I’m not supposed to say.”

“You’re not on Harold’s side, Tom. And he’s not on yours. He grabbed your wife last night, and apparently he’s holding her for ransom. I told you about it this morning. Don’t you remember?”

“No. I didn’t talk to you this morning, did I?”

“You were in bed, just waking up.”

“Oh, yes, I remember.” But I could see that he didn’t.

His father leaned toward him and prodded his shoulder. “Talk to the man. He’s on your side. He wants to get your wife back.”

Tom grimaced in pain, as if his father had poked him with an electric rod. “Okay, okay. It was the Myrtle in Redondo Beach.”

“They’re not there any more,” I said. “Where would they go from there?”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand what’s going on. Is Gloria mixed up in this?”

“One way or another, she has to be. How did she meet Harold, do you know?”

He answered after a while: “It happened right here in this house. Laurel met him in town someplace, and they were old school friends and she brought him home for dinner. Then Gloria dropped in, and Gloria and Harold hit it off. I guess they saw quite a bit of each other after that.”

“Where did they see each other?”

“Partly here, and partly at her place, I guess. Mostly at her place. I didn’t like the idea of him hanging around here too much, especially when I was working nights. Laurel and me – Laurel and I had one or two discussions about it. As a matter of fact, I think that’s one reason she moved out on me. He had a very funny effect on Laurel.”

“How close were they?”

The question bothered him, perhaps because his father was there to listen to the answer. Tom got up from his hassock and moved away from both of us, very tentatively, like a blind man exploring a strange room. He turned and spoke softly across it:

“They weren’t sleeping together, if that’s what you mean. I mean, Gloria was the one he was interested in in that way. But he had a very peculiar effect on Laurel. He could make her get excited by saying things. I don’t mean in a sexual way, exactly – it was more like somebody taking amphetamines and drinking. I don’t mean she was doing that, but that was the way she acted. She’d get funny and loud and silly. I didn’t like it. So the last time he came here, a week or so ago, I told him not to come back.”

“And Laurel moved out on you?”

“That’s right.”

“Do you think she’s been seeing Harold since?”

“You told me he kidnapped her. That’s seeing him,” he said miserably.

I repeated the question I had asked him that morning. “Could it be a fake kidnapping, Tom? Something they cooked up together to raise money from Laurel’s relatives?”

Tom had been avoiding his father’s eyes. Now he turned and looked at him. The old man’s face had darkened and changed shape, as if it had been squeezed into a rectangular box.

“It’s getting late, Dad. I better take you back to the home.”

“So I won’t hear what’s been going on in this house?”

“Nothing’s been going on in this house.”

“Don’t try to kid me, and don’t try to kid yourself. You’ve been sitting around and letting it happen, making my mistakes all over again. I thought you’d learn from what happened to your mother.”

“What did happen to my mother?” Tom’s voice was thin and desperate, as if he dreaded the answer to his question.

“She was murdered here in this house, in the back bedroom.” Russo spoke with the half-conscious cruelty of an old man who had failed to learn from his suffering. “You ought to remember, you were here in the house when he did it to her. You remembered at the time.”

Tom’s face lost blood as if a plug had been pulled. He clenched his fists and raised them beside his head and ran at his father. Old Russo half rose to meet him, but was flung back into his chair by Tom’s assault.

I caught Tom around the waist and dragged him clear. The old man was bleeding at the side of the mouth. I maneuvered Tom into a chair against the opposite wall and stood over him. He began to sob.

“Ask him who shot his mother,” the old man said behind me. “He was here in the house when it happened. Go ahead and ask him.”

Russo was angry and excited. The harsh memory of the past had been too much for him, and he seemed to be taking revenge on his son for the loss of his wife. I wondered if he had been doing that ever since he came back from Bremerton to look after the boy.

Tom’s dry sobs were like hiccups which convulsed his entire body. The old man took him by the shoulders. “Was it Nelson Bagley?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” His voice was high and level.

“Was he wearing a sailor suit?”

“Yes. But he took it off and they made jingle bells.”

Violence repeats itself like a tic, and the room was full of potential violence. Old Russo began to shake Tom.

“Why didn’t you tell the police that at the time? It’s too late now.”

“That’s right, Mr. Russo. It’s too late. Why don’t you lay off him now?”

“He’s my son.”

“Treat him like one. He’s scared and upset and he’s lost his wife–”

“I lost my wife, too,” the older man said.

“I’m aware of that. All the more reason why you should go easy on your son.”

Like a fighter after a hard round, Russo moved to the far side of the room. He sat down and looked at the floor. I could hear his breathing gradually slowing down.

He rose and approached his son and touched him on the face. Tom returned the gesture.

“It’s okay, Dad,” he said.

Then Tom walked a little unsteadily out of the room. I followed him down the hall toward his bedroom. I had an impulse to stop him, keep him out of the dangerous lair of the past. But when he turned the light on it looked no worse than any other room with an unmade bed.

I stood in the doorway. “When did you start remembering your mother again?”

“I never forgot my mother.”

“I mean about her death – how she was killed.”

“It just started today, I think. Anyway, since Laurel went away. It keeps running through my head like a film clip – her on the bed, and the man on top of her.”

“Was there more than one man?”

“No. 1 don’t know.”

His voice was rising again. He sat abruptly on the edge of the bed and, like a bivalve closing, covered his face with his hands.

“I won’t make you talk about it now. But think about it, will you?”

“I don’t want to think about it,” he said behind his hands.

“Give it a try anyway. Make some notes, if you can. Anything you remember may be important.”

“Why? It won’t bring her back.”

“No, but it may help with Laurel. Did you see Laurel today, Tom?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Where do you think she is?”

He dropped his hands. “How should I know? Laurel doesn’t tell me where she goes.”

I sat on the bed beside him. “Do you think she’s been kidnapped?”

“No.” Then he reconsidered. “I don’t know. I didn’t think Harold was that rough.”

“He’s rough.”

Tom screwed up his face. “I must have been crazy to let him into the house. I thought he was her old school friend. And then he got interested in Gloria. Since she divorced Flaherty, she hasn’t had too many fellows interested in her.”

“Harold was interested in her car, wasn’t he?”

“That’s right. Her car was one of the main attractions.”

“Did he give any indication of what he wanted it for?”

“He wanted to take somebody for a ride. I don’t mean that the way it sounds, exactly. They were just going to take somebody to her mother’s place for dinner. I heard Gloria talking to him about it on the phone.”

“When?”

“A couple of days ago. What day is this?”

“Thursday.”

“Then it was Tuesday.”

“Who were they going to take for dinner?”

“Somebody from the hospital. I didn’t catch the name.”

“Where does her mother live?”

“Aunt Martie runs a motor court on the Coast Highway. It isn’t much of a place. She’s had some reverses since her husband left her.”

“Topanga Court?”

“That’s right. Do you know the place?”

“I was there this morning.” And Aunt Martie had lied to me about the tweed suit.