“What he did to that girl was inexcusable.”
“Oh, don’t waste any tears on her — one perhaps, but not a bucketful. She’ll get over it. She’s not the first girl, and won’t be the last, to get caught under the gate. Frailty, thy name is woman, don’t forget.”
“Unfortunately, this was a slight case of rape.”
“Oh it always is when Mommy finds out.” Then, as though none of it amounted to much: “If I were you, though, and you can afford it, I’d pick up the tab — it might relieve the tension. I mean the Florence Crittenton charges.”
“I thought of that. I made the offer.”
“...And?”
“Declined — with a kick in the teeth.”
“Keep trying, Gramie.”
The car rolled up, I took her down and put her in, and that was all that we said on the subject. I’d have given anything for something helpful out of her, and she didn’t seem to know it. I kissed her good-bye, shook hands with the Hamells, stood back and watched them roll off. Then I found my own car and started once more for my own headache.
Chapter 6
I had told her not to answer the bell, so I let myself in with my key, and didn’t see anything of her, but caught the smell of furniture polish. I went in the living room and she wasn’t there, but the smell was, even stronger than in the hall, and I was surprised at how slick everything looked, especially the bookshelves, which are maple, and showed the grain of the Wood in a way I’d never noticed before. I was opening my mouth to call, when she whirled past the arch that led to the hall, a dust mop in her hand, which she shook out the front door, first taking a peep out to make sure no one was looking.
But her costume was really quite startling. It consisted of one of my shirts, with the sleeves buttoned back on her elbows — and that was all, at least that I could see, except for her shoes and a tea cloth bound on her head. Her legs were bare, but there popped in my mind an impression, which I’d got from peeping before, that she hadn’t had garters on, which of course meant panty hose. But if she’d taken them off, what did she have on now? I was working on it, as she started back to the kitchen, when all of a sudden she saw me and gave a yelp.
“Oh!” she said. “Oh!”
“Yeah,” I answered. “Hello.”
“What did he say? No wait, I’ll clean myself up.”
She started for the kitchen again, but stopped again and popped out: “Well you said ‘cleaning woman,’ but I wouldn’t go that far. This was the dirtiest place! And I thought I could clean it for you. You’ve been so nice to me, it was the least I could do, to show my ’preciation.”
“You’re quite wonderful, Sonya.”
“Well? Does it look nice?”
“So shined up I hardly know it.”
“Be back.”
She went scampering back to the kitchen, and I heard the water running. Then she was there again, saying: “Innyhow, my hands are clean. So? What did he say?”
“He said no. I doubled the ante, as a matter of fact, upped it to twenty-two twenty-two — and he still said no. I went to bat and struck out.”
“I was kind of hoping he’d take it.”
“So was I–I was stunned at his reaction.”
Then, being careful of what I said, especially to keep Mother out of it, her trick to let Burl skip, and her suspicions of how the teacher got killed, with the possible money angle, I gave a few more details of what her father had said, telling her: “As well as I can make out, he means to wreak a revenge, on Burl, as a matter of family honor, and then get money for you, as the price for reversing his gears. But it has to be Burl’s money, and I may as well tell you that things came out in our talk, to arouse suspicions in me, that you may not know about—”
“You mean, in connection with Dale Morgan?”
“Then you do know about them?”
“I don’t know about innything. But my father kept plaguing me, after Dale Morgan died, about the insurance she may have carried” — she called it shurance — “in Burl’s favor. But I know nothing to tell him — is that what you’re talking about?”
“As I pieced things together, yes.”
“Family honor’s bugging him.”
“...I can’t picture him using a gun.”
“He wouldn’t have the nerve. But he has to do something, something for me he thinks, and has decided to settle for money. But to prove he means business, Mr. Kirby, I think he means to charge Burl. That’s what scares me so, that he’ll swear out a warrant for him.”
“That’s about as I figure it out.”
“And that will bring the newspapers in.”
She sat there in her old place on the sofa, I in my old place across from her, and for some time nothing was said, though she kept staring at me. Then I remembered Mother’s warning. “By the way,” I said. “You shouldn’t go home tonight. You shouldn’t be anywhere Burl is likely to find you.”
“You mean he might try to kill me?”
“...Well — not exactly that.”
“Then, exactly what?”
“Okay — that. He raped you, didn’t he?”
“And killed Dale Morgan, Mr. Kirby.”
“Sonya! He couldn’t have! He wasn’t there!”
“And her mother was driving. He killed her, though.”
“But how? How?”
“I don’t know how, Mr. Kirby.”
She leaned forward, both hands on her knees, looked me straight in the eye, and went on: “I tell you one thing, though: My father knows how, and we’d better do something quick, or he’ll blow this ship out of water. And that could ruin us both. Both, do you hear, Mr. Kirby? I said—”
“I heard what you said, Sonya.” We sat blinking at each other, and then in a low voice she said: “There’s one way out, Mr. Kirby, that’ll settle Burl’s hash, settle my father’s hash, and settle my hash, for that matter — I mean, from your point of view. One way out for you, that would be a whole lot cheaper than the Crittenton charges would be. One way out that would take care of everything.”
“What way is that, Sonya?”
“You could marry me yourself.”
“...I bet I could, I bet I could!”
If she’d set off a cherry bomb under me, she couldn’t have jolted me worse, and I didn’t try to hide it, how her idea hit me. She didn’t move or raise her voice, merely telling me: “Well don’t fly off the handle. I mean it.”
“Sonya, I think you’re feeling the strain.”
“I am, I admit it, and you better.”
“Let’s stick to what makes sense.”
“This does, if you’ll let me explain it.”
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t keep a straight face.”
“Then I’ll explain it innyway, and if your face gets all twisted up, from how funny it is to you, then okay it’s funny to you, but it’s not funny to me, so suppose you hold still and listen and stop making silly cracks.”
“You talk like a wife already.”
“You ready?”
“Then, make with the explanation.”
“You go to Northwestern High, you hear things all the time, because some girl’s always in trouble, and the rest of them talk about it, coming up with stuff that doesn’t come up in sex-education class. So you and I get married, and that makes you my guardian — not my father inny longer, or my mother, or innyone, but you. So that gives you the right to have an abortion done, in New York, where all they want is your money, two hundred dollars, please pay the cashier. So, two hundred, plus the plane fare, plus the hotel bill, is a whole lot cheaper isn’t it, than the Florence Crittenton Home? It would wind the whole thing up, because you’ll be the one, remember, who decides if Burl’s to be charged, if a warrant’s going to be sworn out. If you say no, that’s it. So? Does that make sense or doesn’t it?”