Wife or Death (18 page)

Denton took from his pocket the note signed “Curt” and held it before the district attorney's eyes. “Exhibit A. Recognize the handwriting?”

Crosby's flush returned. “No.”

“Augie does. Don't you, Augie?” Denton held it before the chief. “Remember the witty little messages—mostly four-letter words, as I recall—he used to pass us in school? You were his favorite correspondent, Augie. Now tell me
you
don't know his handwriting.”

Spile said slowly, “Curt Oliver.”

“Right you are. It's an ancient memento I found in Angel's auld-lang-syne box. Purely historical interest, of course. Curt didn't attend the Wyatts' party, so he can't be the man she arranged to meet.” He brought out the handmade valentine and held that before Ralph Crosby. “Exhibit B, Mr. District Attorney. Familiar?”

Crosby's flush deepened. Denton stowed away the cartoon heart and produced the note signed “A.”

“Exhibit C. A for Arnold, surname Long, your immediate predecessor for Angel's—ah—favors. Exhibit D you just tossed in the wastebasket. I found her box of sweet memories last night. She kept one message from each of her lovers as a record of her conquests. There were twenty-six, I believe, since I married her. I didn't count the ones before that.”

Crosby's face had undergone a swift change. The blood drained out of it as if sucked by a powerful pump, to be replaced by a suffering pallor. And the pale face contorted with despair.

“You liar, Denton,” he said thickly. “You goddam
liar
.”

“Well, what do you know,” Denton said. “Then you really were in love with the trollop. Still are, Ralph. I imagine the others knew what she was and were satisfied with a few rolls in the hay. But not you. You fell for her. And, wonder of wonders, you're still nuzzling the fire in the torch. Can't you get yourself to believe what every last man, woman and juvenile delinquent in this town knows to be a fact? That my wife and your one-time mistress was a willing pushover for every John that asked her?”

“You—shut—your dirty—mouth!” Crosby choked. At the complete silence of Denton and Chief Spile, he tried to come to himself. He took out his handkerchief and wiped the spittle off his lips. He did not meet their eyes. For a moment Denton felt sorry for him.

“Look, Ralph, I'm not really enjoying this,” Denton said quietly. “After all, I must hold some sort of record for cuckoldry. It's just that I find myself suspected of having murdered her, and I'm damned if on top of everything else she did to me I'm going to let her put me in the hot seat for something I didn't do. You knew perfectly well that when she dropped you it was to take on a new man. That's the man she left me to run off with. And that's the man I think did the job on her. How about leaving your personal feelings out of this, Ralph, and tackling the case on the level?”

Crosby simply got up and walked out.

After a long moment August Spile cleared his throat again. “Find anything in that box you mentioned? I mean from Norm Wyatt?”

“No.” Denton was frowning at the door the district attorney had just closed. “But then most of the note writers I couldn't identify. If you want, I'll turn it all over to you for handwriting examination. Though I don't think it will advance us any. There was nothing in the box from Angel's last lover.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because she had the stuff arranged in chronological order, and Ralph Crosby's—that match cover—was the bottom one. If she'd received any message from the new boy, one of them should have been under Crosby's. The guy must have been too crafty to put anything in writing.”

“Could be, though, she filed it out of order,” the police chief said. “You bring in the box tomorrow, Jim. I'll get hold of a sample of Norm Wyatt's handwriting some way and do a little comparing. If necessary, we can call in a handwriting expert. Mind if I hang on to the box? I'll give you a receipt for it.”

“Fine, Augie. I'll drop it off in the morning.”

“By the way, Jim.”

Denton, halfway to the door, turned around.

“I phoned Buffalo,” August Spile said. “The polygraph man can bring his machine down here Friday. You still willing to take the test?”

“You have said it, O Chief,” Denton said, and grinned. “Just holler when ready!”

He walked out almost as if he could see daylight and the edge of the woods.

21

Denton went back across the square to the
Clarion
office. The bundles of unclaimed newspapers were still lying there. His watch said twenty to five. He unlocked the door and threw the bundles inside.

Then he phoned his garage.

“Jim Denton. Will you have someone run my car over to my office? I'll drive him back.”

“Sorry, Mr. Denton,” the attendant said. “We've been so rushed we haven't been able to get to it. Have to wait over till tomorrow.”

Was this another result of the gossip? He was sure that a week ago the
Clarion
editor's car would have received immediate attention.

Denton shrugged and hung up. There was no point in calling for a cab; at this time of day it would be like trying to get a seat on the New York subway at the height of the rush hour. It was a sunny fall day with the temperature in the sixties. He decided to walk.

He found himself enjoying it. Ridgemore was beautiful in Indian summer, and this fall it was spectacular. The old elms lining both sides of the streets spread their great branches so far out that they almost touched. It was like walking under a fiesta canopy.

Some years, Ridgemore was hip deep in snow by early November. Winter would come soon, and suddenly, falling like an ax. Overnight the temperature would drop forty or fifty degrees. This might be his last chance to savor the dying autumn.

Denton breathed deeply and slowed down.

He was still seven blocks from his house when he had to stop for a traffic signal. A car heading in the same direction pulled up for the light as he waited on the corner.

It was Matt Fallon, alone.

And the cartoonist was pretending not to have seen him. Fallon's eyes were fixed on the traffic light, his neck unnaturally stiff.

It was less awkward, Denton supposed, than having to offer the pariah a lift and perhaps be seen in his company.

Denton felt a twitch of irritation. It had spoiled his walk.

He called loudly, “Why, Matt old boy! Hiya!”

Fallon's glance jumped his way in exaggerated surprise. He forced a smile. “Oh, Jim, hi. Didn't see you. Going my way?”

“You bet,” Denton said heartily, and he jumped into the cartoonist's car.

The light changed, and Fallon stepped on the gas. He began to drive fast.

“Whoa,” Denton said. “Trying to break my neck, Matt, or get rid of me? Slow down.”

Fallon grinned feebly and slowed down. Once or twice he made a gargly sound, but it died in his throat. He seemed desperately anxious for Denton to say something—anything, to break the swelling silence.

But Denton sat, furiously quiet. All the frustrations and unfairness of the past six days were boiling up in him. Matthew Fallon at that moment symbolized the town that had dirtied his reputation and Corinne's, and was getting ready to destroy them.

He said nothing until Fallon, obviously relieved, braked to a stop at the Denton mailbox.

“Okay, old boy?” the cartoonist said with a strained smile.

Denton did not get out. “No, Matt, it's not okay,” he said in a voice that shook. “It's not okay by a hell of a damn sight. You think I'm a wife-killer, too, don't you? All my friends do. I've been tried and convicted by this town even before Augie Spile can bring himself to throw me in the clink. My so-called friends are still polite when they can't avoid meeting me—like you—but—also like you, Matt—they make like they're blind if they think they can get away with it. Have you cancelled your subscription to the
Clarion
yet?”

Fallon said, “Now, Jim—”

“Ridgemore is loaded with friends like you. They started showing their friendship for me long before this by, one after the other, laying my wife. But you know all about that, don't you, Matt? You were in there demonstrating your friendship along with the rest.”

“What's the matter with you, Jim?” the cartoonist stammered.

“Why, nothing, nothing at all!” Denton yanked the valentine out of his pocket and thrust it at Fallon. The man's face turned gray. “What have I got to worry about? Maybe there'll be a change in the rumors soon. Maybe you'll be the target. You know why I'm still walking around like anybody else instead of holding my head in one of those soggy cells in the court house sub-cellar?”

Fallon mutely inched away. His expression suggested that he was dealing with a homicidal maniac.

“Because Augie Spile can't prove anything on me,” Denton rasped. “He's even beginning to accept what I've told him from the start—that Angel ran off to meet a lover that night who knocked her off for good. All her past playmates are in for investigation. At least those who were at the Wyatts' party that night. Her killer was at that party. That pretty well narrows it down, Matt. You're one of the few suspects. And maybe before long you'll know how it feels to have your friends turn their heads and make believe they haven't seen you!”

Fallon seemed dazed. “But nobody could think … What reason would
I
have …?”

“You were at the party, weren't you? You were on Angel's hit parade, weren't you? And, by the way, Matt, I heard her—during that power failure—making plans with some Casanova to run away with him. Was it you who said to her in the dark, ‘Just take a suitcase'?”

Something happened to the cartoonist. He seized Denton's arm. “Was that Angel talking to the guy in the dark?”

And something happened to Denton. All his fury winked out, leaving cold eagerness. “You overheard them, too?”

“I heard a man and a woman having a funny powwow. When the lights went out I started to grope my way toward the front door, but I missed it and ran into the wall, where I decided to stay. But en route I passed this couple and heard them whispering.”

Here was verification that the conversation had actually taken place! Denton thought with elation Augie Spile would have to believe him now.

“What did you hear, Matt?”

“The woman whispered, ‘Still set, honey?' Or ‘baby,' or some word like that. The man whispered back, ‘Yeah, just take a suitcase.' Then she said, ‘Same place, same time?' and he said, ‘Four-thirty, or as close as you can make it. I'll see you at—' I was past them then, so I didn't catch the end of it.”

Denton asked slowly, “Who was the man?”

“I don't know. You know how whispering changes voices. I didn't even realize the woman was Angel till now.”

It was like riding the merry-go-round in a dream and reaching for the ring and always just missing it. The only thing concretely new was the time of the assignation, 4:30 A.M. Although there was a teasing quality about the “I'll see you at …” that Denton could not quite put into focus.

Meanwhile, there was Fallon, seated beside him in anxious silence, like a defendant waiting for his verdict. “Sorry I blew my stack, Matt,” Denton mumbled. “I didn't realize myself what all this has done to my nerves.”

The cartoonist sighed and relaxed. “You have every right, Jim. I've acted like a heel. And about Angel, that time … what can I say? She just—I don't know—invited a pass. And I didn't have guts enough to resist.”

“You had a lot of company.”

“That doesn't excuse me. I can't even say I was drunk the first time. I do know I hated myself all the while it was happening, and yet I couldn't stop. She was the one who broke it off. I wouldn't blame you if you wiped the floor up with me and then never spoke to me again … Jim.” Fallon touched Denton's arm. “When I picked you up a few minutes ago, I was convinced you'd killed her. Nearly everyone in town thinks that. That was stupid of me, and it's stupid of everyone else. I know now you didn't do it.”

“If you want to help me, Matt, tell Augie Spile what you overheard at the Wyatts' that night.”

“I'll do it tomorrow.”

“Thanks.”

Denton got out. Fallon, looking like a condemned man who has just been reprieved, drove briskly off.

On the porch floor, immediately before his front door, Denton found a chalked verse:

Jimmy Denton took a gun

And shot his Angel in the bun.

When he was sure she'd left this life

He hopped in bed with his best friend's wife.

Anger bubbled up in him again. He whirled and glared up and down the street. There was no one in sight. Then a flicker of white movement in the corner of his eye made him look directly across the street. He had one glimpse of an avid female face peering over at him from behind a curtain before the curtain dropped.

Denton unlocked his door and went into the house, slamming the door behind him. He stood there for some time, his back against the door, shaking with rage.

Gradually the flood ebbed.

Getting a mop from the kitchen closet, filling a pail with warm water and detergent, taking them out to the porch, scrubbing off the anonymous poet's handiwork, Denton even found something grimly humorous in the situation.

His verse was not as good, but it did put him in Lizzie Borden's class.

22

Not until he had cooked and eaten his dinner did Denton remember having told Bridget White to pick out some of Angel's things. He went to the bedroom to check the cleaning woman's selections. Astonishment halted him in the doorway.

The bed was loaded.

There was a stack of coats and suits; a tower of dresses, skirts and blouses; a mountain of sweaters and slacks and other sports clothes; a pile of lingerie; a heap of shoes, boxes of varying sizes and shapes. Even Angel's overshoes and umbrellas.