I staggered back to the sofa, sat down shivering. Details started coming back to me, about what had happened when I came into the room. But I still couldn’t understand any of this. I knew who hit me, all right. I had seen him plain. It was my good friend, Doc Palmer! And Verna had been there, too, right behind him, looking very white and strange.
I couldn’t figure it out. Even when it dawned on me what must have happened, I just couldn’t take it in. Verna and Doc! I couldn’t believe it. Not that I’d put it past Doc, in a way. I mean, we were friends. I didn’t think he’d do it to me. But I know Doc is a chaser.
But Verna! I couldn’t imagine her with Doc. This was all wrong. Phoney, wrong, impossible. This had to be one of those things I think of, one of those day-dreams of mine. But there was my mother-in-law. The deed had been done, and Doc had done it. I had to accept the fact. Doc had been here with Verna, thinking that I was asleep back there in his office. She had come in, had found them. There’d been a row. I could picture that. She had probably threatened to tell that wife of Doc’s, maybe even had picked up the phone. He let her have it. Then I had come in...
I tried to figure what I should do. The police! I would have to call the police.
“My God, that horse!” I thought in sudden horror. After he had hit me with it, he had put it into my hand! My fingerprints were all over it!
I was crouched by the corpse, scouring frantically at the murder weapon with my pocket handkerchief, when they all burst in on me. It was very confusing. There were so many of them. Burgess, the cop. Sam, with his eyeballs bugging out. Verna, clutching a big bag of groceries and screaming. And Doc.
“I knew there was something wrong,” Doc was telling the cop, speaking very loud and fast. “He was acting very strange — making threats, terrible threats. I thought he went to sleep — that he was sleeping off his drunk in my office. I saw Mrs. Adams go by with her groceries, so I called her in. I thought the two of us could get him home. But he was gone! I got scared, all of a sudden. I thought you’d better come along with us, just in case. And I was right. My God! I was right!”
I was so mad, I went for him with the horse. “He did it! He killed her!” I kept yelling as Sam and Burgess jumped me, held me down, put handcuffs on me.
Do you know, nobody believed my story! Not even my lawyer. Oh, he went through the motions. He hired some expensive detectives to check on Verna and Doc. They couldn’t pick up a whiff of gossip connecting them. Verna had been seen by a score of people, pushing a basket around the local supermarket at the approximate time of the murder. Doc Palmer’s hired help were positive he’d been in the store all afternoon, except when he’d been in his office, getting me settled down.
I’d told Jack Pearson, the clothier, that I was going home to attend to some business. Harry, the bartender, testified that I’d been threatening to kill my mother-in-law for some time. Doc Palmer testified that I’d told him that I was really going to do it this time, that I was going to kill the old bat.
Verna’s testimony really clinched it. What she said, and the way she said it. We were divorced by then, of course, but it was obvious she was terribly reluctant to put the noose around my neck. But the prosecutor forced her to admit that the beauty shop had called to cancel her mother’s appointment while I was still home, eating lunch. That I knew that she, Verna, would be out shopping. That I knew that her mother would be home alone.
After Verna’s testimony, I began to wonder myself if I had done it. I was so sure that I had accurately remembered what went on that afternoon. But maybe something had slipped a cog in my mind. The only thing I could cling to, the only way I could keep hold of my sanity, was the fact that I could not visualize any discharge of violence. Even drunk as I was, that deed would have branded itself into my consciousness.
The jury was convinced. They brought in a verdict of guilty. I got twenty years. My lawyer said I was lucky.
The only person who believed my story about Doc and Verna was Doc’s wife. I didn’t even tell it on the stand, by the way. My lawyer decided I’d better not testify. He said I’d make a poor witness, and that making a completely unsupported statement like that about my wife would prejudice the jury! By that time in my trial I wasn’t even sure myself what I had seen. I don’t believe it would have made much difference, anyhow.
But Doc’s wife must have believed me. She divorced him right after the murder. Only she named a little blond clerk at the store as corespondent, and made it stick, too.
Verna came to see me at the jail, one time, just before I was taken to the State Prison to begin my term. My last appeal had been turned down. Verna’s divorce was final, with a settlement that had pretty well cleaned me out. There was only one bit of unfinished business.
“Thank you for coming,” I told her, through the wire netting that separated us. “You look very beautiful.” She did, too. Young, and sleek, and expensive. She was wearing the mink coat, and her shining dark hair was wrapped around her head in some complicated way. Her black dress was that plain, figure-hugging kind that costs so much money, and she had on the diamond clip I’d bought her.
“Your lawyer said you had to see me,” she stated.
“Verna, I can’t go up there without knowing,” pleaded with her. “What really happened that day?”
“What do you mean, what really happened?”
“Verna, I wasn’t that drunk. I know that Doc was there, when I went into that room. I know that you were there. I remember what happened. I’ve got to know why. Verna, were you having an affair with Doc?”
“With that old goat?” Her nostrils flared with disgust. “Give me credit for better taste!”
I felt a flood of relief. One of the worst things I had had to face, among all the adjustments I was having to make, was the idea of Doc with Verna. Of the guy enjoying my wife, on my money, while I was in jail for his crime.
“But then why?” I kept on. “Why did it happen?”
“You really want to know?” She looked around to be sure we were not overheard. Her eyes sparkled as if with joy — a kind of malicious joy. “Well, I’ll tell you.”
“Doc killed her, all right. Here’s what really happened. They called to cancel Mother’s appointment just after you left. Mr. Cecil had been overcome by the heat. So we did the dishes, watched some television. Then Mother got some washing together and took it down to the laundry machine in the basement. While she was gone, Doc Palmer came steaming in. He had some wild idea that we’d be alone for the afternoon, and he was going to make the most of it. That old creep had been giving me the eye ever since we moved into the neighborhood, but I’d never so much as give him the time of day. I still can’t figure why he thought I would.
“So he was making himself very objectionable, and I was fighting him off. At that point Mother came in. Well, there was quite a scene.”
“Yes,” I said. “I imagine there was.”
“She just about raised the roof. First she was going to call the police. Then she said, no, she would call his wife. His wife would see that he paid for this, without involving us all in open scandal. She picked up the telephone to call his wife. It was then that he snatched up the bronze horse, hit her with it.” She grimaced, stopped, recalling the moment.