The Wycherly Woman

Chapter 27

I passed on some of my new information to Bobby Doncaster. He was hardly able to believe that Phoebe was innocent of her mother’s death. I left him at the Siesta stunned with joy, I think.

I still wasn’t wholly satisfied with Phoebe’s story. Unanswered questions nagged at my mind. One of them, the question of Homer Wycherly’s availability on the night of the crime, could possibly be answered by the steward Sammy Green.

The case was coming to a focus, in space as well as meaning. Green’s house in East Palo Alto was only a five-minute drive from the motor court. He was even at home, according to his wife.

Green came into his living room through the kitchen, a quick-moving young Negro wearing an apron emblazoned with the legend “Master Chef.” His smile was slightly defensive, as if I’d caught him performing a doubtful ritual:

“I’m barbecuing some steaks. They always take longer than you think. What can I do for you, Mister–?”

“Archer,” I said. “I came at a bad time and I’ll try to make it fast. I’m a private detective, and I’ve been talking to the Master-at-Arms of your ship. McEachern tells me you looked after Homer Wycherly’s stateroom this last voyage.”

“I did, yessir.” His smile faded, and only the defensiveness remained. It was like watching a human face turn to smooth black stone. “Is there some trouble?”

“I only want a little information, Mr. Green. Wycherly came aboard on the afternoon of November the second. The ship was due to sail at four o’clock, but it didn’t actually sail until the following morning. Right?”

“Yessir. We went out at dawn.”

“Did Wycherly leave the ship on the night of November second?”

“Not to my knowledge. No, sir. ’Course, I wasn’t sitting there watching him all evening. I had plenty of things to do.”

“Did you see him at all in the course of the evening?’

“Yessir, I did. I was in and out of the stateroom several times. Mr. Wycherly is a man who likes things the way he likes them. I’m not complaining,” he added with a professional grin. “He gave me a good tip the other day. A hundred dollars buys a lot of steaks.”

“You say you were in and out of the stateroom. How frequently?”

“Every hour, anyway. Oftener than that. He kept asking for things and I kept bringing them.”

“What sort of things?”

“Drinks. Food. Speaking of food, my steaks are going to be incinerated.”

“I took them off the fire,” his wife said from the kitchen doorway. “The children are eating theirs, and I put ours in the oven to keep warm.” She retreated out of sight.

“I’m sorry to be a nuisance.”

“It’s perfectly all right,” he said with formal politeness. “Is there anything else you wanted to know?”

“Just this. Could Wycherly possibly have left the ship that evening long enough to get to Atherton and back?”

“I don’t see how. He couldn’t make the round trip to Atherton in less than an hour-and-a-half. And that would be cutting it real fine.”

I thanked him and left, with more unanswered questions in my mind. I took them across the city to Merriman’s house. My headlights caught the reflector sign that spelled out the dead man’s name in three-inch letters. There was a light in the cottage among the trees. I made my way up the dark walk and knocked on the door. Sally Merriman answered through it:

“Who is it?”

I reached back for the name I had given her. It was a long reach. “Bill Wheeling. We talked about houses the other night.”

She said in a tired voice: “I’ll put something on.”

Her footsteps went away and after a time returned on clicking heels. She switched on the outside light and opened the door. What she’d put on was a scarlet muumuu worn over tight black Capri pants.

“Come in, Mr. Wheeling.”

I stepped directly into her living room. It was poorly lit by a fussy silk-shaded lamp which stood on top of the blank-eyed television set. A battered-looking tape recorder stood on a coffee table. Newspapers cascaded from the chesterfield and chairs onto the floor.

The room was mirrored and repeated by the glass doors on the far side. I could see myself and the woman in the glass, like actors playing out a television drama which went on and on without any station breaks.

She gathered a sheaf of newspapers from one of the chairs and stood holding them. “I’m sorry, the place is a mess. My husband died, I guess you know that. I haven’t been doing much around the house.”

“You’ve had a rough time.”

“Yeah, a rough time.”

Its marks were on her face. She still had her beauty, though, in spite of death and gin, and the money problem that nags like a chronic disease under the heart. I was ashamed of using it against her.

She pulled herself together with a visible effort. From some incredible reserve she dredged up a smile and fixed it on her face and talked through it:

“I don’t have the listings here at the house, but I can tell you in general about our offerings. We have some very nice offerings.”

The words were a little out of synchronization with the movements of her mouth. She flapped her blue eyelids at me as if it was herself she was trying to sell. Thirtyish blonde, available at a bargain, abandoned by previous owner, needs some work. More work than I felt up to.

I remained standing with my back to the door, watching my mirror-image using my face in the glass. The man who knocked on any door at any time with any kind of a story.

“I have to admit something, Mrs. Merriman.”

Her body went rigid.

“I’m not actually here to buy a house. I’d like some help from you.”

“Help.” Her red lips curled over the word. “I need it. I don’t give it.”

“We may be able to help each other. I’m a detective looking into your husband’s death, and certain other matters.”

The rigidity rose to her face. “You can go back and tell your cohorts that I’ve done all the talking I’m going to. There’s no use me talking. I’ve told you people over and over my brother Stanley didn’t knock off Ben. It’s a dirty libel on a dead man who isn’t here–”

“I agree with you.”

The blue stuff on her eyelids exaggerated her look of surprise. “You mean you boys at the Hall of Justice have come to your senses?”

“I’m not from the Hall of Justice.”

I told her my real name and occupation. The information did nothing for our relationship:

“So you’re just a lousy gumshoe!”

“A pretty good one,” I said. “I’ve come to the conclusion that the answer to who killed your husband is in his office safe.”

Her lips parted and shaped the word, “How–?” before she clamped them shut. She was a lousy actress.

“I think the answer is on a tape recording which your brother made for your husband some time last spring. Your brother tried to get it from you yesterday.”

“Did Jessie Drake hire you and put you onto me?”

“No, but I would like to ease her out of this bum rap.”

“You expect me to help you with that? I wouldn’t cross the street to save her neck.”

“Aren’t you interested in who killed your husband?”

“Of course I’m interested.”

“Then come down to his office and let me into the safe.”

“I don’t know the combination.”

“That’s kind of hard to believe. You were pretty close to your husband’s business.”

“His legitimate business. I wanted no part of the other.” She narrowed her eyes at me and tried to look shrewd. “What about this tape? Is it really worth money?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t try to collect the money it’s worth if I were you. Your husband and your brother tried. Look what it got them.”

She looked, and shuddered. “They were killed on account of that tape?”

“That, and other things.”

“How do you know about it?”

“I told you I was a pretty good gumshoe.”

The woman didn’t smile. “You’re trying to take me for something.”

“What have you got besides trouble?”

“God knows I’ve got plenty of that – more than I can use.” Her expression softened a little. “You think it was one of the people on that tape who knocked off Ben?”

“You’ve heard the tape, Mrs. Merriman?”

She froze, still and flat-eyed. Finally she said:

“All right, so I heard it. Don’t go jumping to conclusions. I wasn’t in on the deal with Ben and Stanley. I wasn’t in on any of Ben’s deals. I watched the money come and I watched the money go and damn little of it ever rubbed off on me. He threw away thousands on the tables and he didn’t even leave me a house I can call my own. Then the cops had the gall to impound the money they found in Stanley’s shop. I say it rightfully belongs to me.”

“Forget that money. You don’t want the rap that goes with it.”

“More dirty blackmail money?”

“It smells like it to me. What was said on that tape?”

“I don’t remember too well. It was a couple of people, a man and a woman. It sounded like they were arguing in bed.”

“How long ago did you hear it?”

“Just last night. I went down and got it out of the office last night. The way my brother talked, it was worth money, like you said. So I rented a machine and put it on, but I couldn’t tell who the people talking were. Who is it worth money to?”

“Me.”

“How much money?”

“I’d have to listen to it first. Is it here in the house?”

She did some quiet writhing. “Yeah, I have it here. I hid it in the kitchen.”

“Let’s play it over.”

She went out to the kitchen; I heard her moving pans. She came back with the tape, handling it as if it were made of platinum; put it on the recorder and set it for playback. I sat on a hassock beside the coffee table. After a rustling silence, Trevor’s voice spoke from the machine:

“That was Phoebe, you know. In that car.”

“I didn’t see her,” a woman’s voice said.

“I did. And she saw us.”

“Does it matter so much? She’s old enough to know the facts of life. Christ, I had her when I was two years younger than she is now. As you well know.”

“I wish you wouldn’t swear.”

“Listen to the man. Are you getting religion or something? Is Helen making a Christian out of you?”

“We won’t get off on Helen. I simply dislike hearing a woman swear. Especially in bed.”

“You like women to do other things in bed.”

“Not women, just you. But we’re going to have to be much more careful in future. If Phoebe goes to Homer with this–”

“She won’t. She’s got more brains.

“But what if she does?”

“I wouldn’t give a damn.”

“I’d give a very big damn, as you choose to put it. I have a lot to lose.”

“You’d still have me.” There was wistful irony in the woman’s voice.

“You, and nothing else. Helen would take everything. Naturally I’d lose my job. At my age, with my health record, I’d never get another one on my own level.”

“We could make do. I could get money from Homer.”

“For the two of us to live on? Don’t fool yourself. Even if he did give you a settlement, I wouldn’t live on Homer’s money.”

“You’re living on it now.”

“I work for the money I live on,” he said sharply.

“Money, money, money. We wouldn’t need money if you loved me enough. We could go to Mexico or Tahiti and live very cheaply.”

“Sure, and rot away into the landscape. We’ve been into that romantic fantasy before. I’m not Gauguin and neither are you.”

“I suppose this is your idea of real romance.”

“It’s all there is,” he said.

“But don’t you want to live with me?”

“It’s too late.”

“Yah, it was always too late for you. The trouble is that you don’t love me enough. Sometimes I think you don’t love me at all, that you’re just using me to scratch an itch.”

“People who love each other use each other.”

“No.”

“Yes,” he insisted. “I love you better than anything or anybody.”

“Except your goddam job and your goddam income and your goddam house and horses and for all I know that goddam frigid wife of yours. You’ve stuck with her long enough.”

“That’s my business.”

She let out a laughing cry. “Business is the word for Cully. Poor cautious Cully, he wants to eat his cake and keep it, too.”

“Satirize away. I’ve been poor, remember. I intend to go on keeping what I’ve got.”

“Even if it means losing me?”

“I don’t intend to lose you. Let’s not quarrel, hon. We have to do some thinking.”

“This is a hell of a time and place to do some thinking.”

“It’s the only time and place we have.”

“Or ever will have.” She said after a time: “I wish the two of them would go off on a plane together and crash or something.”

“Homer and Helen aren’t the type. They’ll outlive us both.”

“I know. I almost wish you’d never come back to me, Cully. When I’m away from you, I want you all the time. And then when we do get together, you want to talk about money and problems and things.”

“I didn’t make this problem.”

“Who made it if you didn’t?”

“All right, we made it together. The fact that we’re both in it doesn’t help much. The overriding fact is the fact that Phoebe saw us tonight, in compromising circumstances.”

“So I’m compromised. Again.”

“You don’t seem to get the picture,” he said urgently. “Everything is on the point of blowing up in our faces.”

“Let it blow.”

“No,” he said emphatically. “We have to keep the situation as it is.”

“Why do we have to keep it as it is?”

“For the sake of everyone concerned. Not just you and me, but Phoebe too.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to her.”

“What can you say?”

“She might as well know the truth. If I tell her you’re her father, that ought to head her off.”

“Tell her that she’s a bastard?”

“Bastard is just a word. I think of her as a love-child. I’ve wanted to tell her that she was our love-child ever since she got old enough to understand. This seems like a good time to do it.”

“I absolutely forbid it,” Trevor said. “If Phoebe is told, if anyone is told, the whole thing’s bound to come out.”

“What if it does?”

“It’s not going to. I’ve lived a split-level life for twenty years, suppressing my real feelings, covering up. I’m not going to let you make nonsense of it now.”

“You want her to inherit the money, don’t you?” she said softly.

“It’s a reasonable wish for my daughter.”

“Always money. Haven’t you learned it isn’t that important?”

“You can say that because you’ve had it.”

“I haven’t always had it, any more than you. Anyway, she could inherit the money, whether or not I told her who she is.”

“You’re wrong. You don’t know Phoebe.”

“I ought to, she’s my daughter.”

“She’s my daughter, too,” he said, “and in some ways I know her better than you. In the long run she’s incapable of lying–”

“So we go on doing her lying for her?”

“I’m certainly not going to let you tell her the truth about her parentage. The truth is supposed to make you free, but it doesn’t. The less people know of the truth, the better for them.” He spoke with a kind of dry and abstract anguish.

“Okay, Cully, don’t tie yourself in knots. I won’t tell her. We’ll let things lie. Let them lie.” She seemed to savor the doubleness of the words. “Now let’s think happy thoughts for a change. Shall we?” She waited. “Think about me?”

“I think about you every day of my life.”

“That’s better. And you really love me, don’t you?”

“I love you passionately,” he said without much passion.

“Show me, Cully.”

The bed creaked. Sally Merriman bent forward and switched off the recorder. Her eyes and mouth were bright.

“That’s all there is. Who are they, anyway?”

“Paola and Francesca in middle life.”

“Paola and Francesca? They don’t sound much like foreigners to me. They sound like you and I. Besides, she called him Cully.”

I made no comment.

“Did this Cully knock off Ben?”

“I don’t know.”

“You said the tape would clue you in on who did it.”

“Did I?”

“You’re trying to con me. You know who they are.”

“Maybe. I don’t intend to tell you. One of them is dead. The other might as well be.”

“Which of them is dead?”

“The woman.”

Her eyes went dark. “But she sounded so alive!”

“She looks so dead.”

She took it as a personal threat. “Is everybody dying?”

I looked past her at our images in the glass. We were huddled together in a small lit space suspended in darkness over the long fall. “Sooner or later,” I said.

“How old was she?”

“Thirty-nine or forty.”

“What did she die of?”

“Life,” I said.

“Is that supposed to be a gag?”

“I’m feeling a little depleted.”

She sat in silence for a while, then rose and stretched, letting me see the weight of her breasts lifting under her muumuu. “So am I feeling depleted, if the truth be knownst. How about a little drinkie? I have some gin in the kitchen.”

The voices on the tape seemed to have excited her. Whatever her feelings were, they accentuated her beauty. Her eyes were like peepholes into starred purple darkness. I suspected that she could be had for the taking.

“Thanks. I have to be going.”

“But we need to talk about the money. I thought it would be nice if we talked about it over a drink like friends.”

“What money?”

“The money you’re going to pay me for the tape.”

“Oh. That.”

I stood up and took out my wallet and counted the money in it: two hundred and ninety-eight dollars. I separated out five fifties and handed them to her:

“Here’s two-fifty. That leaves me forty-eight bucks to get back to L.A.”

She crumpled the bills in her fist. “What are you trying to pull on me? Two hundred and fifty measly dollars! You’ll sell the tape for a hundred times that much.”

“I’m not planning to sell it.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Hang somebody.”

“You’re not going to try and hang me?” Her free hand embraced her not quite classic throat. “I thought you liked me.”

“I like you, and this is the proof. If I wanted to hang you, I could do it with a quick call to the Hall of Justice. Or I could simply take the damn thing away from you. Instead, I’m giving you all the ready cash I can spare.”

While she stood and watched me, I rewound the tape and took it off the machine and slipped it into my jacket pocket.

“What can I do with a measly two-fifty?” she said, hugging the crumpled bills to her chest.

“You can make a down payment on two funerals. Or you can buy a ticket out of here.”

“Going where?”

“I’m not a travel agent,” I said from the neighborhood of the door.

She followed me to it. “You’re a hard man, aren’t you? But I like you, I really do. Are you married?”

“No.”

“I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know where to go.” She leaned towards me with a lost expression, hoping to be found. “Where can I go?”

Her body tempted my hands, in spite of the drowned one floating behind my eyes; in spite of all the old numb burnmarks which bodies like hers had left on my nerve-ends.

Try Ephesus. I was in a bad mood, but I didn’t say it out loud.