The Fiend (37 page)

“I'm well aware of it. I spent the night watching the clock.”

“I'm sorry you couldn't sleep.”

“I didn't want to,” Mrs. Osborne said. “I was trying to reason things out, to decide whether this is the right step to take.”

“We must take it. Mr. Ford and the other lawyers told you that.”

“I don't necessarily have to believe what people tell me.”

“Mr. Ford is an expert.”

“On legal matters, yes. But where Robert is concerned, I am the expert. And what you're going to do today is wrong. You should have refused to sign the papers. Per­haps it's still not too late. You could call Ford and ask him to arrange a postponement because you need more time to think.”

“I've had a whole year to think. Nothing has changed.”

“But it could, it might. Any day now the phone might ring or there'll be a knock at the door and there he'll be, good as new. Maybe he was kidnapped and is being held captive somewhere across the border. Or he had a blow on the head the night he disappeared and he's suffering from amnesia. Or—”

Devon held the telephone away from her ear. She didn't want to hear any more of the
maybes
Mrs. Osborne had dreamed up during the long nights and elaborated on during the long days.

“Devon?
Devon.”
It was the closest thing to a scream Mrs. Osborne ever permitted herself except when she was alone. “Are you listening to me?”

“The hearing will be held today. I can't stop it now and wouldn't if I could.”

“But what if—”

“There isn't going to be a knocking at the door or a ringing of the phone. There isn't going to be anything.”

“It's cruel, Devon, it's cruel to destroy someone's hope like this.”

“It would be crueler to encourage you to wait for some­thing that can't happen.”

“Can't? That's a strong word. Even Ford doesn't say can't. Miracles are happening every day. Look at the organ transplants they're doing all over the country. Suppose Robert was found dying and they gave his heart to some­one else. That would be better than nothing, wouldn't it?—knowing his heart was alive—wouldn't it?”

Mrs. Osborne went on, repeating the same things she'd been saying throughout the year, not even bothering any more to make it seem new by altering a word here, a phrase there.

Two clocks at opposite ends of the house began sound­ing the hour: the grandfather clock in the living room, and in the kitchen the cuckoo clock Dulzura kept on the wall above the stove. Dulzura claimed it was a present from her husband, but nobody believed she ever had a husband, let alone one that gave her presents. The grandfather clock belonged to Mrs. Osborne. Carved at the base were the words meant to accompany its chimes:

God Is With You,

Doubt Him Never,

While The Hours

Leave Forever.

When Mrs. Osborne moved out of the ranch house to let Devon and Robert occupy it alone, she'd taken along her antique cherrywood desk and mahogany piano, her silver tea service and collection of English bone china, but she left the clock behind. She no longer believed that God was with her and she didn't want to be reminded that the hours left forever.

Seven o'clock.

The Mexican workers were coming out of the bunk- house and out of the old wooden building, formerly a barn, that was now equipped as a mess hall. Quickly and quietly they piled into the back of the big truck that would drop them off in whatever fields were ready for harvesting. There was little in their lives except hard work, and the food that made work possible.

At noon they would sit in the bleachers built by Es­tivar's sons beside the reservoir and eat their lunch in the shade of the tamarisks. At five they would have tortillas and beans in the mess hall and by nine-thirty all the bunk- house lights would be out. The hours that left forever were good riddance.

Agnes Osborne was still talking. Between the time Devon had stopped listening and the time she started again, Mrs. Osborne had somehow reconciled herself to the fact that the hearing would be held as scheduled, beginning at ten o'clock. “It will probably be better if we met right in the courtroom so we won't miss each other. Do you remember the number?”

“Five.”

“Will you be bringing your own car into town?”

“Leo Bishop asked me to ride with him.”

“And you accepted?”

“Yes.”

“You'd better call and tell him you've changed your mind. Today of all days you don't want to start people gossiping about you and Leo.”

“There's nothing to gossip about.”

“If you're too nervous to drive yourself, come with Estivar in the station wagon. Oh, and make sure Dulzura wears hose, will you?”

“Why? Dulzura's not on trial. We're not on trial.”

“Don't be naive,” Mrs. Osborne said harshly. “Of course we're on trial, all of us. Ford tried to keep every­thing as quiet as possible, naturally, but witnesses had to be subpoenaed and many people had to be given legal notice of the time and place of the hearing, so it's not exactly a secret. It won't be exactly a picnic, either. Sign­ing a piece of paper is one thing, it's quite another to get up in a courtroom and relive those terrible days in public. But it's your decision, you're Robert's wife.”
“I'm not his wife,” Devon said. “I'm his widow.”

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF MARGARET MILLAR

Available as individual ebooks or in a special seven-volume collector's set

Volume I

The Paul Prye Mysteries

The Invisible Worm
(1941)
The Weak-Eyed Bat
(1942)
The Devil Loves Me
(1942)

Inspector Sands Mysteries

Wall of Eyes
(1943)
The Iron Gates
[
Taste of Fears
] (1945)

Volume II

Fire Will Freeze
(1944)
Experiment in Springtime
(1947)
The Cannibal Heart
(1949)
Do Evil in Return
(1950)
Rose's Last Summer
(1952)

Volume III

Vanish in an Instant
(1952)
Wives and Lovers
(1954)
Beast in View
(1955)
An Air That Kills
(1957)
The Listening Walls
(1959)

Volume IV

A Stranger in My Grave
(1960)
How Like an Angel
(1962)
The Fiend
(1964)
Beyond This Point Are Monsters
(1970)

Volume V

Tom Aragon Novels

Ask for Me Tomorrow
(1976)
The Murder of Miranda
(1979)
Mermaid
(1982)

Volume VI

Banshee
(1983)
Spider Webs
(1986)
The Couple Next Door: Collected Short Mysteries
(2004)
It's All in the Family
(1948) (semi-autobiographical children's novel)

Volume VII

The Birds and the Beasts Were There
(1968) (memoir)

 

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