13 French Street (12 page)

The coffin was not in the least heavy. The rain dripped and we walked slowly through it, through the wet grass and across a makeshift board platform bridging the creek.

Then we climbed the knoll. There were two other men from town up there to help lower the casket into the ground. As yet there was no headstone, but I’d heard Verne speak of getting one.

I refused to look toward Emmetts. But I knew he was watching me.

Herb Corey and Emmetts had come just after the arrival of the hearse, and Emmetts’ eyes stayed on Petra, watching her with a kind of harsh amusement. He was chewing tobacco, and as we trudged along, he occasionally spat.

I wondered if the old woman moved much inside the casket. We were very careful. Verne’s back was straight and he walked stiffly. Climbing the knoll was bad, though, because the grass was slippery. Once Herb Corey, rather ungainly to begin with, dropped to one knee. He wrenched himself erect with a gasp and an embarrassed word of apology.

The Reverend Mr. Waugh muttered something to Petra behind us.

I heard Petra say, “It can’t be helped.”

We reached the top of the knoll by the sycamore, where the dark grave yawned. It was all I could do to keep from jabbering like an idiot. The whole business was horrible, and it was ripping me apart inside.

The rain struck the freshly wounded earth at the sides of the grave and, diamond-bright for a brief instant, vanished.

They whispered and mumbled while the casket was, arranged on the slings over the grave.

Then Verne stood on one side with Petra and her umbrella. I was on the other side, facing her. Herb Corey and Emmetts and the other two men from town stood off to one side while the minister began praying.

It rained slowly, the fine mist of rain drifting down straight and almost as if a cloud were descending over the earth. Water dripped from the sycamore and fingered the shiny black surface of the casket. I didn’t hear a word the minister said.

I looked into her eyes and she looked into mine.

I couldn’t tear my gaze away. I felt Emmetts’ eyes on us and panic knotted nauseously inside me and the Reverend Mr. Waugh’s voice rambled on and on in prayer.

My friend, I thought. My friend’s wife.

We looked at and into each other. I saw her lips part, and her breasts rose and fell more quickly beneath her coat and the umbrella’s filmy shadow.

I wanted her. I wanted to leap straight across the grave and take her, bend her body to mine. She wanted me to.

We were both damned….

Beneath us in that glistening black casket lay a murdered woman, and I’d been a partner to her death.

Returning to the house, Emmetts suddenly elbowed my side. His shoulders hitched and hunched beneath his raincoat and he smiled broadly, lips trembling. “Body’s buried, but the truth lingers, hey, Mr. Bland?” he whispered.

I turned on him, close to flying apart.

“Easy, now,” he whispered. “See you tonight, hey? You ain’t forgot, have you?”

“Get the hell away from me before I kill you.”

He chuckled quietly. “Figure you done enough killin’ for a time.” He spat. “Only thing you’ll be killin’ now is yourself, on her!” He nodded toward Petra’s back, where she was walking beside Verne. Just then she turned and glanced at me. For an instant her gaze locked with Emmetts’. He nodded and grinned at her. She turned away quickly.

His voice was low. “ ‘Pig,’ she says. We’ll see who’s the pig.”

• • •

None of them stayed at the house for long. They all seemed in a hurry to get away. And then we three were alone in the house and the slow rain continued to sift along the eaves.

Ten minutes later, Verne said, “I’m going into town. Try and pick out a headstone for the grave. I feel better now all this is over with.”

I glanced at Petra. I couldn’t help it. She was staring at me and her face was pale.

She said, “I’ll go see if I can’t fix something good for dinner.”

I knew I had to say something. I knew I had to say what I said. I was shaking all over inside and was afraid my voice would tremble, but it didn’t. I just sounded a bit hoarse. “You want me to go in with you, Verne?”

He hesitated, put on his hat, shrugged into his coat. “No, I guess not. You stay here.” He smiled, the first smile in quite a while, but I wasn’t seeing it, wasn’t interested. “Keep Petra company.”

He strode down the hall and the door slammed behind him.

Petra had started for the kitchen. She whirled.

“Keep me company, he said!”

The car wasn’t even out of the driveway before we were at each other like two crazy animals.

I fastened my hands in her hair, jammed my mouth down on hers. She writhed away.

“Upstairs!”

I let her go. She ran for the stairs, undressing as she went. By the time we reached the door to her room, her dress was off.

I grabbed her in the doorway and we fought against each other, staggering wildly toward the bed. She was moaning now and beginning to cry a little.

We never made the bed. We fell to the floor and the house shook and her jetty hair spread out like a broad black fan on that thick auburn rug.

W
E FINALLY
did reach her bed, and, lying there now, Petra suddenly sat up. Then she leaped to the floor and hurriedly dressed.

“He may be home any time. I’ve got to fix something to eat, like I said. Good Lord, it’s been almost two hours.”

“Yes.” I didn’t look at her. Then I felt her hair fold heavily across my face and her lips brushed mine.

“See you later,” she said, and I listened to her feet hurrying down the hall, down the stairs.

There was only sickness inside me now, sickness over what had happened. I tried to fight it off, but it wouldn’t go away. Lying there, I stared up at the dark midnight ceiling, and it seemed I was lying at the bottom of that grave with the damp walls pushing in on either side and with the dripping coffin slung above me. There was Verne’s haggard face. A trusting guy. Why didn’t he know better?

And then the pile of broken gray on the stone of the patio….

Dressed, I went over and looked at the window. The torn screen was still the same. It would always be the same, too, in my mind. It wouldn’t change; the jagged edges, and down there on the bare stone the broken gray mass.

I turned and went down the hall into my room and closed the door. Even closing the door didn’t help, but it did start the thought, I’ve got to stop now. It can’t go on. Something’s got to be done.

I stripped and stood in the shower with the needles of cold water blasting on me, and I kept thinking of that grave out there on the knoll by the sycamore. And the pines were dripping beneath the forlorn gray half-light of an autumn sky. And when we had returned down the knoll to cross the creek, the creek was filling slowly, the grass along its edges soggy with an ability to draw more water from that mist than seemed probable. And the boards the men had put across the creek were swamped slightly, and in the orchard the mist jeweled brightly among thick spider webs.

Wild, she had been, wild, there on that auburn rug.

Rubbed down with a thick towel, I went back into my room and stood staring at the front window, beyond which the shank of the hill leaned against the road. Squatting among the brambles …

Madge was in Chicago, wondering what was the matter, or maybe with a chip on her shoulder. And there would never be any way of explaining to her. If I wanted to explain.

Murder.

The sound of a car turning in the drive told me Verne was back. A moment later the front door slammed and I heard him going down the hall. Then voices very faint, from the kitchen, probably.

There had been no rules. Just an acceptance of what was to come. She’d resisted, put up a barrier of sorts, held me off.

She’d held me off until the old woman was in the ground. Then she’d exploded. And it hadn’t been sane, either. And me without guts enough to go to Verne, or at least to run. Yes. Without guts enough to run.

There was a rapid tattoo of knuckles on the door. I turned. The racket ceased sharply, then commenced again. I slipped into a pair of pants and hurried to open the door.

“Alex, Alex! He’s had an attack!”

She stood there momentarily in the doorway, then sprang at me, not touching me, but standing there with her hands out and her face dead pale with passion. She wore a black housecoat, belted tightly at the waist.

“What?”

“A heart attack. Verne. When he was in town. He said it happened in the car, just as he started out of town. He stopped the car and waited, then drove on in.”

I started past her. She clamped her hands on my arms, shoved her body in my way. “No. Let him be. He’s lying down. Don’t you see?”

I tried to shove by. For a moment we pushed at each other and she began to curse. One look in her eyes was enough. I stopped.

“Don’t you see?”

“Did you call a doctor?”

“He won’t have a doctor. Simply won’t have one.”

“Call one anyway, Petra. For God’s sake. The man may be bad off. He might die.”

“That’s right. Don’t you see?” She flung herself against me. I grabbed her and swung her around at the bed. She sprawled to her knees beside the bed, still talking, gesticulating with her hands. “Don’t you see, Alex? This is our chance. I told you his heart was bad. He’ll never admit it’s as bad as it is. The doctor told him he can’t smoke or drink, but he doesn’t care. He’s down there now, with a bottle of brandy.” She paused. She spoke so rapidly that her voice seemed to run over itself, as if she were talking against time. “All that money, Alex. He’s worth plenty. It would be mine—ours.”

I stared at her without comprehension really, not even believing I heard straight. “Petra. His mother’s just buried this morning.”

She rose to one knee, imploring, her mouth a bloody gash almost as black as her eyes and hair against the pallor of her face. “Yes. Yes. That’s right. The shock of his mother’s death. It could kill him. We could see to it. Don’t you understand? I can’t bear it any longer, it’s been too much. We could …”

I stepped in close, brought the flat of my hand, the heel, sharply against her jaw. She lifted backward against the bed. I wanted to hit her again but I couldn’t. It was like striking water, because when you drew your hand away nothing had changed. She lay there watching me, breathing harshly. The housecoat was half off her, her legs spraddled out, her breasts bared, with only the dark belt holding the flaring housecoat around her.

She watched and watched while little beads of bright scarlet purled from the corner of her mouth.

“You love me,” she whispered. She nodded slowly as she spoke. “You love me and it’s hard for you to prove it, but you say it when you do things like that. You can’t stand hearing me tell what’s true; what’s in your own mind. You can’t stand it because you know I’m right and you love me.”

I couldn’t answer.

“It’s you. You’re still fighting against yourself,” she said. “Why don’t you stop, let yourself go? Admit it to yourself, why don’t you? Because you struck me now you’ll want me more than ever. You won’t sleep, because you can’t stand it. I’ve heard you pacing the floor at night. You keep thinking about that girl in Chicago. Was she as good as I am, Alex? No. I can see it in your eyes, she wasn’t. She couldn’t be. She doesn’t know what love it—the need. Even to kill for it, how better to prove it? How could you—”

I walked out of the room and hurried down the stairs. At the foot of the stairs I glanced back. She was leaning in the doorway of my room, looking down at me.

Verne lay on the couch in the living room with a bottle of brandy cradled in his arm. He was extremely pale and his face and shirt were bathed with sweat. He didn’t move as I stepped up, but his eyes followed me.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“Fine. I’m fine.” His voice was hollow, and when he smiled it wasn’t a smile at all, just a torturing of the muscles around his mouth. There was something like fright in his eyes. But that went away as I stood there.

“Let me call a doctor, Verne. Petra said you had a heart attack.”

“No doctor, Alex. I’m all right. Had these damned things before.”

“Hadn’t you better lay off the bottle?”

“No. It’s good for me.” He grinned. “Hell. You know how I always drank cognac.”

“Yes.”

“Well, this is cognac.”

“Fine. How do you really feel?” I kicked the ottoman over by the couch and sat on it.

“Tired. Outside of being tired, I feel fine.”

“Did it hurt much?”

He grinned this time, took a swallow from the bottle. “No. It’s not bad. You just wonder how many more you can stand. Or if this is the one, or what. Have some?” He offered me the bottle.

I took it and had a couple of good swallows. It was really good. I hadn’t drunk any in a long while, and the flavor of it brought back flashing memories of times and of lots worse cognac.

As I sat there beside my friend, it began to get. very bad. The realization of what had happened and of the things I had done in this house began to eat at me. It was the beginning of the really bad time ahead. No matter what I said to Verne, it was shaded on some side by a lie.

“I think I’d better call a doctor,” I said.

He looked at me. “No. Give me the bottle.”

I took another drink and handed him the bottle. I knew I should phone the doctor anyway. But I didn’t. It was a minor thing, but maybe there was that much trust he could place in me.

“Petra’s had a bad time of it with my mother,” he said. He closed his eyes. The beads of sweat stood out on his forehead as large as field peas. “What will I do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” His eyes stayed closed. “Alex, will you stay on a while yet?”

“Yes.”

I heard the piano from the other side of the house. It was exact, brilliant, passionate playing. At first I didn’t catch the music, then I did, and glanced quickly at Verne. His eyes were still closed.

“Petra,” he said. “She certainly can play. It’s been a long time since she’s touched the piano.”

I stared at him, wondering how he could have such a small knowledge of music as not to know what she was playing. It was patent that he didn’t know.