We All Killed Grandma (21 page)

I paced some more.

I said, “It’s more confused than ever, Robin. I was sure I hadn’t killed her and now it’s messed up again. Because, with you having taken away the gun, I
could
have. But where would I have been when you found her? And how come twice as many shots were heard as were fired? With
you yourself hearing two and firing one! That’s going to knock hell out of Walter’s reconstruction of a simple burglary, however he tries to explain it.”

“You’re going to tell him?”

I stared at her. “Sure, I’m going to tell him. Don’t you think I
want
this thing solved? Even if they decide I did it, I want it solved.” I had a sudden thought. I said, “I’m sorry about one thing, Robin. It’s going to put you in a spot. Not too serious a one, I’m sure. Your running off with that gun because you thought it was mine was illegal, but they won’t have any reason to want to prosecute you for it. And definitely they won’t want to give it publicity.”

She sat there looking down into her glass, saying nothing.

I said, “But they’ll bawl you out, I’m afraid. Let me work it this way; I’ll get in touch with Walter personally, as soon as I can, and tell him. He’ll want to talk to you, of course and you’ll probably have to tell your story three or four times but—well, he won’t be rough on you. He’s a good guy.”

She looked up then and there was the shadow of a smile on her lips. She said, “
You’re
a good guy, Rod. Here I’m telling something that may implicate you in a murder and all you worry about is how gentle the police will be with me when I tell them.”

“There’s nothing to worry about, about me,” I said. “I either did it or I didn’t. If I did, it was for no sane reason, at least no adequate one; I should be locked up so I don’t kill again. If I didn’t do it, I’ve got to know—and be able to prove it to you.”

I looked around until I saw the phone. “Shall I call Walter now, from here? And shall I have him come here? Or would you rather I made a date to talk to him somewhere else first, before he starts heckling you?”

“You’re sure you want me to talk to him at all?”

“I’m sure,” I said.

“Then you might as well ask him to come here.”

I picked up the phone. I gave Walter’s home number and while the phone was being rung I explained to Robin, “He isn’t on duty yet, not until midnight. But he’ll come when I tell him it’s important.”

Nobody answered the phone. I said, “Damn, probably means he took his wife out for the evening. We might catch him around eleven; he’ll probably bring her home then and be around a while getting ready to go to work. Or we may have to wait till midnight to catch him.”

She nodded listlessly. “All right,” she said.

“Only, Robin, I’m not going to inflict myself on you by waiting here. It’s only seven o’clock; we might have to wait five hours. And besides I want to drive or to walk, so I can think. I can’t look at you and think at the same time.”

“All right, Rod. I’ll stay up and dressed till I hear from you.”

“I’ll keep trying Walter’s phone,” I said. I went to the door and opened it and I said, “So long, Robin,” without fully turning to look at her. I didn’t want to look at her because if I did I’d ask her if she still thought I was a murderer—and I didn’t want to know that, not until I knew myself whether I was or not. And I had a feeling that I was going to know soon. With the new information, Robin’s story, Walter Smith would be able to figure things out if I couldn’t.

She said, “So long, Rod,” and all I could tell from her voice was that she was holding something in; what it was I couldn’t tell.

I went down the stairs and outside. It was starting to rain harder, but I had a waterproof trench coat in the car and decided to walk anyway.

I put on the coat and walked through the rain.

Nowhere. Just walking. After an hour I phoned Walter’s number from a drugstore phone and again no answer. I walked some more.

I looked up and I was in front of the apartment house Vangy lived in. I kept on walking; I thought I might as well make my next call from the tavern where Harry Weston had taken me when I’d gone to his place after leaving Vangy.

I went there. I tried phoning Walter again. Then I sat down at the bar. I ordered a beer to have something in front of me.

Here, at this tavern, something had
started.
Until I’d been here with Harry for a while I’d been simply bent on
getting drunk. I’d got my “big idea” and had left Harry, without explaining what it was, and had headed for Grandma’s, trying to sober up en route.

Suddenly I remembered.

I knew why and how I’d gone to Grandma’s and what had happened when I got there. And I knew I hadn’t killed her. I knew now what the shock had been that had caused my amnesia—and it had been a shock a thousand times worse than finding Grandma’s body. And I knew, too, why I could remember now when I hadn’t been able to remember before.

And it all made sense, except for one missing piece. I still didn’t know who the murderer was. And that didn’t matter.

I got up and walked out of there like a sleepwalker. Into the rain again.

I walked some more blocks, fitting disconnected bits of my memory back into a consistent whole. I got to thinking about and remembering my life with Robin and I had to pull my mind away from that and get to thinking about the night of the murder. Because it
did
matter who the murderer had been; until I knew that and could prove it, Robin could never be absolutely sure about my part in it. She might believe what I could now tell her, but there’d always be a doubt.

I went over it and over it in my mind, from the time I’d left Harry Weston at the tavern until the moment at the telephone when the police operator had asked my name and I hadn’t known it. I fitted the pieces this way and that until I knew. I didn’t know
why,
but I knew who and how.

And another drugstore came along and I went in and phoned Robin.

I said, “This is Rod. I’ve got my memory back. I know what happened that night. I didn’t kill her, Robin. I can prove it to you, tonight, if you’ll go somewhere with me.”

I heard her gasp a little. “Where are you?”

“On the other side of town, afoot. I’ve been walking; my car is in front of your place. I’ll grab a taxi and get there as fast as I can. Will you be ready?”

“All right, Rod. I’ll be ready. Did you get Walter Smith?”

“No.” I had a thought. “Listen, Robin, do you want to wait until I can get him to go with us? I mean, if you’re still afraid—”

For all she knew, I might be lying. I might have just remembered that I did kill Grandma; I might be taking her out to kill her somewhere before she could tell her story to Walter.

She said, “I’ll be waiting downstairs, in your car.”

She was waiting there when the taxi dropped me off. I got in behind the wheel and I wanted to put my arms around her and kiss her, but I didn’t. I’d waited a long time; I could wait a little longer.

I drove to Grandma’s, and one house beyond.

Henderson’s lights were on. We went up on the porch and I rang the bell.

After a minute the door opened and he stood there. I could see surprise, and something else, on his face. He said, “Robin and Rod! Come in.” We went in and he led the way to his study.

“Robin, Rod, sit down. May I offer you a drink?”

I started to say no, and then I realized that I really wanted one. Robin nodded faintly; she must have felt as I did, even though she didn’t yet know what I knew. Henderson made three drinks at a liquor cabinet at one corner of the room. He said, “I was just thinking I’d like one myself before I turned in. Now there may be something to drink to. Are you two—reconciled?”

I said, “I don’t know, Mr. Henderson. There’s something that comes before that. I’ve got my memory back—and I even know why I lost it. And Robin’s told me something I couldn’t have remembered because I didn’t know it. But when the two stories add together—Why did you kill Grandma, Mr. Henderson? I thought you were her only real friend.”

He looked at me gravely. “What makes you think I did, Rod?”

I turned to Robin. “Will you tell again what you told me early this evening, Robin? Then I’ll fill in the gaps.”

She told it calmly.

I said, “I had a date with Vangy Wayne that evening, Robin. But—it didn’t click. My mind was on you and not
on her. I took her home around nine o’clock and by ten we’d quarrelled—or rather she’d ordered me out because I’d told her I was still in love with you. I left. I had a start at drinking already and I decided I might as well forget things by hanging one on. Harry Weston lives only a couple of blocks from there and I went to his place to find company for the rest of my drinking. He took me to the tavern around the corner from there. I started to hang one on—a good start. And then, suddenly, I got an idea. Maybe it was because I was drunk, but it seemed like a wonderful idea.”

I looked at Robin; I was talking to her now and it came to me that I should have told her this part of it first, before we came here. But it was part of the story and it had to be told.

I said, “I told you early this evening—and it was a deduction then, not a memory as it is now—the main reason for our breaking up. The fact that you wanted children—your own children, not adopted ones—and because I thought then that I had a hereditary tendency toward insanity I didn’t dare give them to you. So I—”

Henderson interrupted. “Where did you get that idea, Rod?”

“From Arch. He told me…” And I told him just what Arch had told me and when.

“He knew better than that, Rod. I knew the cause of your mother’s death, and Arch and I happened to talk about it once, back when, five or six years ago. He knew.”

For the moment I was distracted from my story. I stared at Henderson. “Why would Arch have told me that if he knew the truth?”

He smiled faintly. “You tend to judge other people by yourself and their motivations by yours. I don’t
know
Arch’s reason for telling you that whopper, but I can guess. He was trying to break up your marriage with Robin—and he succeeded.”

“But
why
?” I wanted to know. “Arch isn’t in love with Robin.”

“Arch is in love with money. Arch is the one of the two of you who is psychopathic, if either of you is. I think he’d do anything for money—except possibly, kill for it. A year
and a half ago—that would have been about the time he learned that Pauline Tuttle didn’t have too long to live, that you and he would soon be splitting her estate between you. And if you had a wife—and especially children—he’d never get more than half of the estate. If you were single, divorced and without children, he’d be
your
heir. If you predeceased him—and I won’t even suggest that you might have had help in doing that eventually—the whole of her estate would be his, not half of it. And he probably, then, figured as most people did that her estate was a lot larger than it turned out to be.”

He interlocked his fingers and stared at me. “Rod, Arch would have told a lie to break up your marriage for an even more off-chance of getting a lot less money.”

“I don’t believe it,” I said. But I did, and I guess the tone of my voice showed that I did, because Henderson didn’t say any more. Yes, I remembered Arch down the line now. A thousand little things, not the few that had come up in the last week and a half.

But that I could think about later. I’d been talking about the night of the murder, and Arch had been in Chicago then.

I said, “Robin, suddenly while I was sitting in that tavern I got an idea that seemed—at least in my drunken state—to be the answer to the problem of us. A suggestion that might enable me to talk you out of the divorce. You wanted children, your own children—and they couldn’t, I still thought, be mine. I remembered an article I’d read the evening before in a digest magazine telling how medical science was perfecting—had already succeeded with animals—in something even more amazing than artificial insemination. Artificial fertilization—a way in which you could have your own children without me or any other man being the father.

“All right, maybe it was a wild idea but in my state that night it seemed wonderful, the complete answer to my problem. I wanted to get to you right away and tell you the truth about why I hadn’t wanted children and then my idea for getting around it. My car wasn’t available because it was being repaired, so I started for Grandma’s to borrow Arch’s—at any price. I realized I needed some
sobering up before I started driving, though, so I walked part way, as far as downtown, where Walter saw me. Then I rode a cab for a while but got out again to walk the last few blocks.”

I turned to Robin. “You saw me go in; you were driving up then. I saw from the outside that Arch’s light was out—I’d forgotten he was in Chicago—but he could be in bed, so I let myself in and went up to his room. He wasn’t there. I didn’t want to bother Grandma—especially as I was still drunk enough that she’d notice it—so I went quietly through the house to the back and outside to the garage to see if Arch’s car was there.

“If Arch’s car was there—and it was—I was going to take it and square it with Arch afterwards. Nothing mattered except my getting to Halchester in a hurry. And I was nearly enough sober to drive if I started out slowly—and with several hours of driving ahead of me I’d be sober enough to talk to you when I got there. I knew Arch’s car had a simple ignition lock that I could short out. I found a piece of wire and took care of that. Then I got in and started it.

“And that, Robin, is when you heard the two backfires you thought were shots. Arch never did keep that car tuned up or adjusted—his spark plugs probably had never been cleaned since he got it, and the timing was lousy. It backfired twice the minute I gunned it. And the sound, coming around the house from in back, sounded to you like shots in the house. That’s when you went in the front way.

“And that’s when I realized that I’d have to drive Arch’s car right past the window of Grandma’s study and that she’d hear it then, if she hadn’t already heard the backfires, and think the car was being stolen. She’d phone the police and I might be picked up before I got to Halchester. So I knew I’d have to go in and explain to her after all. I was afraid I might have to argue with her for a while so I pulled the wire off to stop the engine and went in the back way. And it was just as I closed the kitchen door, Robin, that
I
heard a shot, the shot you fired accidentally when you picked up that hair-triggered gun.”