Wicked Angel (24 page)

It was only Dr. McDowell who had the darkest and faintest of suspicions, and he never told them even to Alice. Once he had asked the stricken Mark, “Of course, it doesn’t matter now, but did your wife ever tell the boy she was to have a baby?” And Mark had replied in a lifeless voice, “No. But she was going to tell him that night; we were going to have a family celebration when we told him. She’d promised me…”

Just the darkest and faintest of suspicions. Jack had examined Kathy, the day after the tragedy. Was that a broad heel-mark on her belly? Or was it the mark of the chair-leg when she had fallen over the chair? Her skirts had been thick and full, not enough to save her child, but thick enough to blur the outlines of the hemorrhaging great bruise on her flesh. Yes, Jack had his ghastly suspicions. But what good would it do to voice them now, even to the family physician? The murderer—if Angelo had actually and inadvertently murdered his mother in the attempt to kill the unborn child—was dead. Any further examination or talk would only arouse Mark’s own suspicions, and his life would be ruined forever. Better to leave it this way. Better to let Angelo’s grave bury what had truly happened.

And, of course, Kathy was saying nothing. When she had recovered consciousness in the hospital, after her baby had been born dead, the police had asked her only a few gentle questions. She had said, so faintly they had hardly heard, “I—fell. That’s all. I fell.”

There was one eloquent thing that confirmed Jack McDowell’s suspicions, but seemed not to arouse the suspicions of others. Kathy never asked for Angelo. She did not know he was dead. She had not heard him fall. But—she never asked for him.

“I’m glad she doesn’t,” Mark said to his friend. “But then, she’s so heavily drugged, isn’t she? She probably just thinks he’s safe at home.”

“Yes,” said Jack. “That’s it, of course.” He paused. “If she ever does ask about him—just say that you don’t want him to know how sick his mother is, and that you’ve sent him back to the cabin, with Betty.”

But Kathy never asked. She rarely spoke. But she wanted Mark with her every moment that she was awake. She would lie absolutely still, her chill hand in his, and would only fix her simple eyes on his face. A very few times a tear would run down her cheek, to Mark’s heartbreak. She not only did not ask for Angelo, she did not speak of the child she had lost, either. Sometimes Alice, who relieved Mark, would look at her sister and she would feel that her own heart was crushed. Poor Kathy! Poor children, the one who had died, the one who had been killed in his headlong fall. There were moments when she forgave Angelo. There were moments when she could grieve for him. He had been so exceptionally beautiful and charming and intelligent. Perhaps a miracle might have happened, in spite of what Jack had once said. Perhaps he might have become truly human in time.

The funeral had been quiet and private. Angelo’s body-had been laid in the family plot. And very soon, if the doctors were right, Kathy would lie beside him forever, with her baby’s body at her feet. Poor Kathy. Alice’s tears were like burning acid in her eyes, and she reproached herself over and over that she had ever been impatient with that loving and fatuous mother. But Mark was her worst suffering, Mark with his haggard blank face, Mark with his dry and unseeing eyes. She sat beside him, with no words of consolation—for such words were foolish—but she prayed silently for him.

Kathy hardly breathed in her high narrow bed, with the sun streaming through the window, its pleasant curtains floating. Sometimes her nurses bent over her suddenly and sharply, to see if she were still alive, and felt her pulse. She lay flaccid; sometimes her open eyes would stare blankly at the ceiling, and Alice would wonder if she were truly conscious and thinking of anything at all. Hour by hour her face dwindled, became smaller, and hour by hour her glazed eyes sank back into her skull.

It was Alice who was alone with her on the fourth midnight when she died.

The nurse had stepped out “for a moment.” Mark was resting, exhausted, in his room. The night light was on, a vague softness. Alice was beside the bed, watching her sister. Kathy’s eyes were half open; she was breathing a little quickly. Alice bent over her anxiously. Kathy’s face was covered with great drops of cold sweat. Then her eyes turned fully on Alice and she recognized her sister, and she smiled a little.

“Alicia,” she murmured.

“Sleep, dear,” said Alice, and swallowed her tears.

Kathy moved her head restlessly; her eyes had a fixed look, far and quietly terrible. “Not yet,” she murmured. “I just want to say something. I think I knew—all the time, even when he was a baby. But I used to read—the books, you know, about child care. There was one doctor—he called children “petals and flowers.” And—somebody wrote there weren’t any bad children, just bad parents. No. No! It isn’t true! The Bible is right—about man being wicked from his birth and evil from his youth. Most of us—dear—we learn better because we are better. But—others—like—like—”

She paused. Her breath came faster. A look of absolute terror and grief stood on her face. The great drops on her face glittered in the night light, and she clutched Alice’s hand.

“The others—they don’t have souls. Not like ours, never. That’s why they kill, and do—other things—and we can’t believe they’re what they are—”

Kathy panted. She even tried to raise herself on her pillows in her desperate urgency to communicate, speaking rapidly with her last strength.

“They think I don’t—know—that he’s dead! I do! I prayed that he’d die, since I was brought here! And—and this morning—I knew. It—it is such a consolation; Mark won’t suffer anymore. Be good to him—be good to him—”

Her eyes closed. Her breath stopped. She died between one moment and another.

EPILOGUE

A year and a half later Jack McDowell sat with Mark Saint in his apartment in the City. Alice, who had prepared the dinner they had just enjoyed, was clearing away the dishes in the kitchen with the help of Jack’s pretty wife, Mary. Mark had long ago sold his house in the suburbs; he had never returned there after that day of tragedy except to remove his belongings.

The two men puffed together contentedly in the December dusk. The sounds of the City came to them muffled and agreeable from far below.

“I’m glad about it,” Jack said. “Of course, I’ve always known that Alice loved you. That is why she wouldn’t marry me. And I’m glad that when you are married in January you’re going to take a long trip abroad. It will be good for both of you.”

Mark’s eyes were quiet now. His face was still thin, butt color had been returning to it for over the past six months. He would never forget what had happened to him. But he would also never know the truth—if there was a “truth” involved.

“Of course,” said Mark, “I’m not young any longer. I’m fourteen years older than Alice. But she doesn’t seem to mind.” He hesitated. “And she wants children.”

“And you don’t?”

Mark got up and began to walk slowly up and down the room. He had a fireplace in his apartment; he stopped to look at the fire. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Why not?”

Mark came back to his chair. He looked at Jack steadily. “I want the truth about something, Jack, and only you can tell me.”

For an instant Jack was alarmed. And then he saw that Mark’s eyes were only troubled and uncertain, and not filled with horror. “Yes?” he said.

“There was Kathy and Alice is her sister,” said Mark quietly. “You’ve told me all the traits of a psychopath. You’ve said they aren’t inherited. But—Kathy. Well, she had some of the traits Angelo had. I’ve got to be frank, so that I’ll know if it’s safe to have—children. You see, Kathy didn’t like people, either. She—and God forgive me for saying this about the poor girl—she was false to people, and often spiteful. She pretended to be interested in them, and sympathetic, and helpful, and anxious about their troubles. She wasn’t, Jack. She—had mannerisms that deceived other people into thinking she was very kind and interested in them. She had a host of friends, who never caught on. Kathy—was greedy, like Angelo. And she was often malicious about people. Frankly, I never heard her say a good and sincerely kind thing about anyone. She would be all bubbles and radiance when we had guests; the door would hardly be shut on them when her face would change and she would talk meanly about all of them for hours. Jack, you understand? I loved Kathy. But I knew her. And I’ve been wondering—”

“You’ve been wondering if she wasn’t a psychopath, too,” said Jack, with pity. “Now let me ask you a few questions, Mark, and take your time and answer them openly and fully.” He paused, and held Mark with his eyes.

“Think, now. Did Kathy love you?”

“Yes! I know she did. Without the slightest doubt.”

“Did she love Alice?”

“Yes. She was jealous of her in some way, and I don’t know why. But Alice lived with us after their parents died, and for years before Angelo was born. Kathy was seventeen years older than Alice: they were like a young mother and child together. Kathy would fuss over Alice like a mother; she was proud of her then, before Angelo came and took Alice’s place in Kathy’s emotions. She did her best for Alice; yes, she loved her. I think she never did stop loving her. She was as shocked as I was when Alice—almost dropped over the bluff that day.” Even now. Mark could not say the awful words. “In fact, Kathy would have nightmares about it, and would wake up screaming, and I would have to reassure her that Alice, was safe.”

Jack nodded. “And her parents? Did she love them?”

“Very, very much. She was inconsolable for a long time after they died. I think she cared more for them than Alice did, but Alice was only a child then. Kathy nursed her mother during her last illness, and became sick over it.”

Jack nodded again. “And Angelo. She really loved him, too?”

“Can you ask that?” Mark exclaimed. “She worshiped him.”

“And none of all this expended love was false or insincere?”

“None,” said Mark emphatically. “When it came to those she loved Kathy would have given her life, if necessary, for them.”

He looked at Jack. “In fact, all of Kathy’s life, misguided though it was sometimes, was all love.”

Jack spread out his hands and smiled. “So, you see, Kathy was not a psychopath. The difference between a normal person and a psychopath is the ability to love others. Evil can’t love anything but itself.”

He stood up. “No matter how much we sin, if we love: there is always forgiveness. But for evil, which cannot love, there is no redemption.”