The Unforgiven (35 page)

Suddenly, the heel of Evy’s shoe crunched down on her knuckles.

Maggie cried out in pain and reflexively released the knife, which spun out of reach. With a swift dive Evy swooped down and retrieved it. Maggie fell back, clutching her throbbing knuckles to her chest. Evy whirled and faced her. She held the knife out, its point aimed at Maggie’s chest.

“No,” Maggie whispered. “It was your mother. Not me. You saw your mother.”

Evy took another step toward her, her pale eyes glittering with insensible rage.

•   •   •

The aged latch tore out of the wall and the door burst open, snapping back to smash the wall behind it. Jess shot forward, then fell with a thud to the floor, gasping from the impact and the shock to his lungs of the cleaner air of the house.

For a moment he lay there on his face, his chest heaving, trying to breathe. Then, at a level with his eyes, he saw a pair of slippered feet and blue-veined ankles twisted grotesquely on the footrest of a wheelchair. With a great effort Jess rolled himself over until he could look up. The old woman stared down at him, her eyes colorless and open wide. Her jaw trembled uncontrollably.

Jess licked his lips and tried to speak. “Harriet,” he whispered.

As if to answer him, the old woman gave a weak, phlegmatic cough.

“Is she gone?” he asked.

The old woman stared at his sallow, unshaven, hollow-eyed face. She tried to nod, but managed only a jerking motion of her head.

“Harriet,” he whispered in a rasping voice. “You have to help me.” Even as he said it, he did not know how. He gazed helplessly at the mournful, aged face. She was dressed, as always, in her bedclothes, the ribboned nightgown ludicrous against the tragic eyes, the slack, downturned mouth. Jess noticed that she had a tray resting across the arms of the chair, attached to the sides. On the tray was a glass filled with orange liquid, with a straw in it. Jess gazed at it for a moment.
Then he looked up into her eyes, wondering if she could understand him.

“Harriet,” he said urgently. “I need to get free of these straps. If you could just knock over that glass on your tray, knock it to the ground and break it, I could use the glass to cut them. Can you do that? Do you think you could manage to do that?”

She stared at him for a long moment.

She doesn’t know a word I’m saying,
he thought.

Then her eyes flickered down to the glass. She shut her eyes tightly. Her body began to tremble with the effort it took to try to make one of her muscles rigid and to move it at the same time. She attempted to lift her arm. It moved an inch off the armrest, then fell again.

“That’s right,” Jess urged her. “Knock it over. Right here. Near me.” He watched her apprehensively. There was no way to tell if she would succeed, or when. He would have no warning if the glass fell and shattered. No way to shield his face. He grimaced, trying to keep his eyes open only a slit. “Come on,” he cried.

The old woman was breathing in gasps now, willing her arms to move, but they would not. Her torso twitched with the effort. Jess watched her with a growing despair. “Try,” he insisted.

She opened her eyes and stared into his. A brew of sadness and fear bubbled behind them. Slowly she lowered her head.

“Please,” Jess whispered. “You’ve got to.”

With a sudden motion she jerked her head forward. Her outstretched chin caught the side of the glass.

Jess flinched and squeezed his eyes shut as it fell.
The shattered glass flew up. He felt one sliver nick his ear, another gouge his chin. He opened his eyes. A sticky puddle of orange juice oozed across the floor. The glass lay in fragments around him. He looked up at the old woman. “Good,” he said.

Even her eyes could not smile. She watched impassively as he began to maneuver his bound hands toward a gleaming hunk of glass.

25

“I knew it!” Grace’s flushed face was triumphant.

Schmale stared at the teletype machine from which he had just received a report on the facts of Margaret Fraser’s criminal history. He frowned and looked up into Grace’s agitated eyes. “What do you know?” he said.

“I’ve had a feeling about her from the first day she got here,” Grace asserted dramatically. “There was something phony about her. Mr. Emmett, indeed,” she sniffed. “Mr. Emmett didn’t go around hiring convicts.”

“I wonder,” Jack mused, “what our friend Miss Fraser knows about the absence of Mr. Emmett.”

“Oh, my God, Jack,” Grace cried out. “Do you think she killed him?”

“Well, I’m not saying that, Grace. We don’t know that he’s dead. But it sure would have been inconvenient for her if Bill Emmett had walked into the newspaper office and declared that he’d never heard of her and that she had no business being there.”

Grace blanched and stared at the law officer. “Unless she made sure he was never coming back,” she said. “Jack, she’s a killer. A cold-blooded murderer.”

“Well, not quite,” Jack insisted. “Apparently it was a
crime of passion. She killed her lover. That’s a bit different.”

“Cold-blooded, warm-blooded. What’s the difference? We’ve got a known killer right here on this island. And two men dead.”

“Now hold on, Grace. You know yourself Jess was drowned by accident, and there’s no proof of Mr. Emmett being dead. I’ve been up there to her place, snooping around. There’s not a trace of anything suspicious.”

“Nothing suspicious!” Grace cried. “Her latest conquest is buried at sea. Now we come to find out that she killed her last paramour. And Mr. Emmett’s missing. Everything points at her.”

“I can’t argue with you, Grace. It looks bad.”

“Bad? Jack Schmale, what are you going to do about this?”

“Well, I think I’m going to go out there and talk to her.”

Suddenly, Grace gasped. “Oh, my God.”

“What is it?”

“Evy,” she said. “Evy is out there alone with her. In that woman’s state of mind, who knows what she might do?”

Jack stood up and lifted his hat from the coatrack. “I’m going now,” he said.

Grace stood up. “I’m going too.”

Jack held up a hand. “Now, Grace…”

“That child is alone out there with a madwoman on a killing spree, and it’s partly my fault. If I had insisted on this sooner… if I’d have followed my nose, none of this would have happened. Oh, my God. If anything happens to that girl, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Jack shrugged on his raincoat and did not argue with her.

“I’m going with you,” Grace said. She ran to catch up with the police officer, who was already opening the door.

The squad car was parked right out in front of the station house. Jack ran around to the driver’s side and got in. By the time Grace had joined him in the front seat he had already started the engine.

“Nasty day,” he muttered, turning on the defogger to try to clear the windshield.

“Hurry up,” said Grace, removing a hanky from her pocketbook and nervously wiping the windshield in urgent, circular motions.

“Give it a minute,” said Jack.

“We can’t wait,” Grace insisted.

“Okay,” said Jack, squinting as he backed up. “But I can’t see a damned thing.” The clunk of the rear end of the car into the bumper of her car, which was parked behind him, confirmed his statement.

“Watch out,” Grace squeaked. “Charley’ll brain you if you dent that new car of ours.”

Jack pulled out of the space and started up Main Street. After a few turns they were on the road leading away from town. Jack turned on his low beams to try to pierce the dense fog as they sped along. There was silence in the car except for the swish of the windshield wipers.

Grace bit her lip, but finally she spoke. “Can’t you go any faster?” she said.

“These roads are bad today,” Jack explained.

“I hope that girl is all right.”

Jack peered anxiously through the windshield and pressed his foot down on the accelerator.

The point of the knife weaved back and forth in front of Maggie’s face. She did not dare to take her eyes from it. She tried to back away from the menacing blade, but Evy advanced on her, baiting her with the weapon she clutched.

All at once, Evy lunged. Maggie leaped away, but the very tip of the knife caught her upper lip, slicing partway through. Maggie heard the blade rap her teeth. Blood gushed from the small wound, splattering on the floor and her clothes. Evy struck again.

Ignoring her cut, Maggie flopped down to the right and grabbed the girl’s wrist. The sudden movement shocked and unbalanced Evy, and she dropped heavily to the floor. Maggie tried to wrest the knife from Evy’s grip. Enraged, Evy sank her teeth into the hand which held her own.

Maggie cried out as Evy’s teeth sank through her flesh and clamped around a bone. She wrenched her wrist free from the girl’s grasp and smacked her in the jaw. Evy tumbled backward, releasing the knife, which shot across the floor and fell between two planks under an eave. She scrambled to her feet, looking for her weapon.

“It’s gone now,” Maggie cried out, tackling Evy around the legs. The two women grappled, rolling across the floor, smashing into boxes and knocking the hanging chair on its side. They gripped each other in a deadly embrace, each one’s limbs straining to control the other’s. Suddenly, with a guttural cry, Evy ripped
an arm free and struck a sharp blow to Maggie’s stomach with her elbow, which winded and stunned her. Weakened, Maggie loosened her grasp on the girl. Evy pulled away from her and clambered toward the stairs.

Recovering, Maggie scuttled after her, grabbing at the girl’s waist as she bent down over the third stair. As Maggie reached down, Evy turned toward her. Maggie looked into the barrel of the gun.

“Get back,” Evy ordered.

Maggie crawled backward as Evy mounted the stairs.

“Now we’ll see,” said the girl, training the gun on Maggie. “Stand up.”

Short of breath, Maggie struggled to her feet.

“Now you put that chair back where it was and get on it,” the girl ordered, panting between words.

“Evy,” Maggie pleaded, “don’t.”

“Do it!” the girl shrieked. Maggie heard the sickening click as Evy cocked the gun.

Maggie looked from the girl’s merciless eyes to the swinging noose. There would be no talking her way out of it. From the corner of her eye she saw a metal lamp base standing about two feet from where she stood. Without pausing to think, Maggie dove down and grabbed for it.

“Stop!” Evy screamed as she saw Maggie’s desperate lunge. “No, you don’t.” She aimed the gun at Maggie’s head and pulled the trigger.

There was a click, then silence. Evy stared in disbelief at the impotent weapon in her hand. Maggie,
halted for a moment by the click, grabbed the metal lamp base and swung it up hard at Evy.

The corner of the lamp caught Evy on the chin, and the girl spun backward and fell on the stairs. She rolled down two steps. Suddenly, a deafening report tore through the silent attic. The girl tumbled the rest of the way down the staircase, her body heavily bumping each step as she fell.

Maggie froze, confused for a moment by the noise. Then she ran to the steps and looked down.

Evy lay in the stairwell, her body contorted, one thin leg sticking out into the downstairs hall. Cautiously, Maggie crept down toward the twisted form which lay motionless on the steps. Heart pounding, she grabbed the girl’s bony shoulder and jerked it back.

Evy’s pale eyes were open and wide with shock. Her mouth hung crookedly ajar in a permanent grimace of pain. The waxy complexion looked entirely bloodless. Her lifeless hand still cradled the old gun. A huge crimson stain spread out across the front of the sweater where the bullet meant for Maggie had ripped into Evy’s chest.

Maggie crouched on the stair above her and drew her arms up tightly to her chest, burying her face in her hands. “Oh, my God,” she moaned. For a while she rocked there, too stunned to move, clutching her arms around herself and keening. She felt a sharp pain in her own breast and even looked down at herself, filled with the awful fear that she might somehow, spontaneously, start to bleed. All she saw were the splotches of dried blood from her own torn lip. Finally, she pulled herself
up and forced her trembling leg out over the body. With an awkward, goatlike leap, she landed in the hallway.

She knelt down beside the stairway and slumped against the open door to the attic, her chest heaving. Her stomach felt as if it were being squeezed. She closed her eyes and tried to take deep breaths.

Evy. It was Evy all the time. Willy. And Jess.
And now she was dead. It was all over. A sense of relief crept over her.

I should get help,
she thought. She looked toward the kitchen and the telephone. Then she shook her head. She felt as if her knees were nailed to the floor.
There’s no hurry,
she thought.
Evy is dead.

She had killed her. For a moment her feeling of relief was supplanted by a horror of what had happened. Even though she had not actually pulled the trigger, she had struck the blow that resulted in Evy’s death.

She chewed on that for a moment, then chided herself.
You had to do it. It was self-defense. The girl was trying to kill you. Trying to kill you out of a twisted vengeance for something you didn’t even do. It was her mother.
Maggie groaned as she mulled over that revelation. It was Roger’s wife who had killed him. The wife he had vowed he would never leave. Maggie choked out a bitter laugh, but she could feel tears running down her face. Twelve years in prison. Twelve years of accepting the guilt for a woman who must have been insane. Like her daughter.

Maggie turned her head sideways to where Evy’s foot protruded into the hallway. Slowly, Maggie dragged herself up to her feet and stood there unsteadily. Trembling,
with her lips pressed together, she walked over and stood in front of the contorted, bleeding corpse on the stairwell.

She was evil,
Maggie told herself.
She had to die.
But her wrath against the girl would not hold. Maggie kept imagining Evy as a child. An innocent child whose life had been warped by forces outside of her control. For years the lonely girl had lived with her secrets and her pain.
I know what that’s like,
she thought. A feeling of genuine pity for the dead girl washed over her.