“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“I think what the sheriff is saying, dear,” Mrs. Barker interjected with calculated innocence, “is that you also are one of the suspects.”
“Is that what you mean?” Barker stared at the sheriff indignantly.
“Not really, Mr. Barker. I know a man like you couldn’t a had nothin’ to do with it. All the same though, it would clear things up if you told me where you spent last night.”
“Yes, dear,” Mrs. Barker said sweetly, “where were you last night? I’ve been wondering that myself.”
Beau shot her a murderous look and the sheriff intercepted it. “Ma’am,” he said, “I wonder if you’d mind leavin’ me an’ Mr. Barker here alone. For my sake, that is. You see, I ain’t used to askin’ questions with a third party present. It sorta embarrasses me.”
“Of course, sheriff.” Mrs. Barker stood up. “I can understand how it might be embarassing for -- you.” She shot Beau a piercing look on the last word and quickly left the room.
“All right, Mr. Barker, where were you?” the sheriff asked after she had gone.
Behind the French doors in the next room, Mrs. Barker strained to hear her husband’s answer.
“I was with Miss Alice York, last night,” Beau admitted.
“The secretary down to the bank?”
“That’s right.”
“Where at?”
“Her place. Over on Smith Street.”
“For how long?”
“All night. From nine until” almost dawn.”
“Will she vouch for that?”
“She will if she has to. I hope you won’t make it necessary.”
“I’l1 try not to, Mr. Barker,” the sheriff said. “I won’t do it unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
So that was it! Mrs. Barker stood gritting her teeth behind the French doors. Oh, Beau would pay for this! She’d make him pay! She’d make him pay through the nose! The building fire of her anger was temporarily quenched by the ringing of the telephone. She answered it.
A moment later she knocked at the living room door and entered. “Mr. Dawes is on the phone for you.” she told the sheriff.
The sheriff picked up the extension. “Yep, Mr. Dawes?” he said into the mouthpiece.
“Sheriff, a farmboy just came to my office and delivered a packet of papers from Ben Maiden. I looked them over and decided to call you immediately.”
“What’s in ’em, Mr. Dawes?”
“First of all, a bill of sale for his place made out to Continental. It’s signed by him and witnessed by two names I don’t know and a notary. The price is filled in to coincide with the last offer we made him. But that isn’t all.”
“I’m listenin’, Mr. Dawes.”
“There’s a very peculiar letter in with the bill of sale. There’s also a copy of the mortgage held by the Glenville bank on the Malden farm. And there’s what looks like a will, too.”
“A will?” the sheriff asked, puzzled.
“Yes. But let me tell you about the letter first. It asks me to dispose of his livestock and personal possessions for him. And it talks about a passage he’s underlined in the mortgage.”
“What sorta passage?”
“It’s one of those old riders that banks used to attach to mortgages around the turn of the century to protect themselves. It says that in the event of sale the bank is to receive the total amount paid to the owner. In his letter, Malden is very concerned about this. He asks me to see to it that—and I’m quoting him now, you understand -- that I do my best to see that ‘lousy thief-bastard Beau Barker doesn’t get away with it.’ He requests me to fight the bank in the courts if necessary and authorizes me to dissipate all the assets of his estate rather than to let Barker get them.”
“Can it be done‘? I mean, if it’s in the mortgage paper—”
“I shouldn’t think it would be too difficult to break this mortgage, sheriff. My firm employs some of the best legal talent in the country. I don’t believe the clause will ever hold up in court.”
“What’s in the will?”
“He names me as his executor and leaves everything to the township of Glenville with a recommendation that the money be used to build a new hospital.”
“The letter say anythin’ else?”
“Yes. It apologized to me for the heartaches his daughter had caused myself and my daughter. It—it sounded sad: sheriff. It sounded final. I think he’s going to kill himself.
“I’ll get right out there, Mr. Dawes.” The sheriff hung up and started for the door.
Ben Malden wasn’t waiting for him. He’d expected that his letter to Dawes would bring some such action. He had no intention of letting it stop him. He hefted the straight edge razor in his hand and lay down on his bed. The scrap of paper with the few words he’d scrawled on it was pinned neatly to the pillow beneath his head. Ben stared at the razor for a long time, thinking, remembering. . . .
She’d come into the room with blood on her clothes. He didn’t know from what. Just that it wasn’t hers, from the way she ignored it. She gave off an aroma of sweat mixed with desire-basic, sexy. She made straight for his bed, hands tearing at her clothes, eyes glazed over with lust.
She threw back the covers and the weight of her naked body was on top of him. Now her fingers were tearing at his pajamas, freeing his long erection and clutching at it. Her legs separated and he could feel the tendrils of red hair covering her groin dampening with desire as she pressed against his knee. Then, like some wild thing, she straddled him, nails digging into his shoulders and drawing blood, haunches grinding down against his thighs with the joy of impaling herself.
She moved like an animal gone berserk then, twisting and turning and bouncing, but never losing her passionate perch. She sighed and she moaned and she screamed aloud. She exploded with his explosion and still it wasn’t enough. She kept moving over him in a grasping, sucking rhythm until he was aroused once again and then she let herself go with a mad releasing of lust that went on and on and on. Finally, his lust also exploded a second time and it was over.
She left as silently and quickly as she’d entered. Ben was alone then. Alone with the knowledge that this wasn’t like the first time. Then he’d been able to tell himself she had sinned unknowingly, like an innocent child. He’d even been able to half-forgive himself on the grounds of having been drunk and asleep and not knowing what he was doing. But not this time.
This time he’d been awake when she came in. This time she was a grown woman and knew exactly what she was doing. This time he’d looked at her like a man looks at a woman; he’d seen her breasts thrusting toward him in the darkness with the long, red nipples quivering, and he’d been aroused. He’d felt her body heat sweep over him and he’d made himself forget that this was his daughter. He’d made no protest, put up no fight. He’d taken what she offered with a lust as uncontrollable as her own. And that made him a monster, just as she was a monster. A monster born of his loins; a monster his loins couldn’t resist. . . .
And then, Ben remembered now as he stared at the gleaming blade of the straightedge razor, had come the visit from Mr. Dawes. His daughter was a lesbian, Dawes had told him, and Ben had believed him. He’d confronted Wilma with it and she’d as much as admitted it was true. He was consumed with horror all that night and the following day. When Wilma had left the next night, he’d followed her. He’d followed her straight to the Morton Motor Lodge.
Yes, Ben remembered as he stared at the razor. He’d followed and watched as she and Glory went through their unspeakable perversions. And he’d waited until she went into the bathroom alone.
Then he’d gone to the bathroom window, taken the ice pick from his jacket pocket and jimmied the window open. The sound of the shower running was loud and Wilma hadn’t seen him until he was upon her. There had been a split second then when recognition had shone from her green eyes. And then Ben had plunged the ice pick home. Her scream as he climbed back out the window and ran still echoed in his ears. . . .