“Mrs. O’Gorman, it’s not good enough. If you’ve received concrete evidence of the murder of your husband, it’s your duty to hand it over to the police.”
“Is it really?” she said with an indifferent shrug. “I guess I should have thought of that before I burned it.”
“You burned the letter?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Both Mr. Haywood and I thought it was the most practical course to take.”
“Mr. Haywood and you,” Quinn repeated. “How long have you been asking for, and following, George’s advice?”
“Is that any of your business, Mr. Quinn?”
“In a way, yes.”
“What way?”
“I want to find out what the competition is because I think I’ve fallen for you.”
Her laugh was brief and brittle. “Think again, Mr. Quinn.”
“Well, I’m glad I amuse you, anyway.”
“You don’t. I’m not amused, I’m amazed that you’d consider me naive enough to swallow such an obvious line of flattery. Did you expect me to believe you? Did you imagine I’d be so swept off my feet that—”
“Stop it,” he said sharply.
She stopped, more from surprise than because he had ordered her to.
“I made a statement, Mrs. O’Gorman. Be amused, amazed, or anything else, but I’m sticking by it. Now you can forget it, if you like.”
“I think we’d both better forget it.”
“All right.”
“You... well, you confuse me. You’re so unpredictable.”
“Nobody’s unpredictable,” Quinn said, “if someone takes the time and trouble to predict him.”
“I wish you’d—we’d stop talking personally like this. It upsets me. I don’t know what to think any more.”
“Well, don’t ask George. His advice hasn’t been too good up to now. Was it his idea to burn the letter?”
“No, my own. He agreed with me, because he thought the letter was merely a hoax or a bad joke. He didn’t take it seriously the way I did.”
“Who wrote it, Mrs. O’Gorman?”
She stared up at the sky. The sun was beginning to set and its golden-red rays were reflected in her face. “There was no signature and I didn’t recognize the handwriting. But it was from a man who said he’d murdered my husband five years ago last February.”
She looked as though she would burst into tears at the least sign or word of sympathy, so Quinn offered none. “Was it a local letter?”
“No. The postmark was Evanston, Illinois.”
“And the contents?”
“He said he’d just been informed that he had cancer of the lung and before he died he wanted to make peace with God and his conscience by confessing all his sins.”
“Did he give the actual details of the murder?”
“Yes.”
“And his motive?”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
She shook her head slowly, wincing as if the movement pained her. “I simply can’t tell you. I’m—ashamed.”
“You weren’t too ashamed to call George Haywood and invite him over to see the letter.”
“I needed his advice, the advice of a man of experience.”
“John Ronda’s a man of experience. He’s also a good friend of yours.”
“He’s also,” she said grimly, “the editor of a newspaper and an incurable talker. Mr. Haywood isn’t. I was sure I could trust his discretion. I had another reason, too. Mr. Haywood knew my husband. I thought he could evaluate the charge made against him in the letter.”
“The charge against your husband, you mean?”
“Yes. It was a... a terrible thing. I couldn’t believe it, of course. No wife could, about her husband. And yet—” Her voice, which had been barely more than a whisper, now faded out entirely.
“And yet you did, Mrs. O’Gorman?”
“I didn’t want to, God knows. But for some time before my husband’s death I’d been aware of a darkness in our lives. I kept trying to act as though it didn’t exist. I couldn’t force myself to turn on the lights and find out what the darkness was hiding. Then this letter came and the lights were on, whether I wanted them to be or not.” She rubbed her eyes, as if to rub away the memory. “I panicked and called George Haywood. I realize now that it was a mistake, but I was desperate. I had to talk to someone who’d known Patrick and worked with him. A man. It had to be a man.”
“Why?”
Her mouth moved in a bitter little smile. “Women are easily fooled, even the smart ones, perhaps especially the smart ones. Mr. Haywood came over to the house right away. I guess I was hysterical by that time. He acted very calm, though I had the impression he was quite excited underneath.”
“What was his opinion of the letter?”
“He said it was a lot of hogwash, that every murder attracts false confessions from emotionally disturbed people. I knew that was true, of course, but there was something so real and poignant about the letter, and every detail of the murder was correct. If the person who sent it was disturbed, then the disturbance certainly hadn’t affected his memory or his ability to express himself.”
“It often doesn’t.”
“I even considered the possibility that Patrick was alive and had written it himself. But there were too many discrepancies. First of all, it wasn’t his style. The envelope was addressed to Mrs. Patrick O’Gorman, Chicote, California. Patrick would surely have remembered his own street and house number. Then, too, the writing wasn’t Patrick’s. He was left-handed and wrote with an extreme slant towards the left. The handwriting in the letter slanted in the opposite direction and it was very awkward and childish, more like a third-grader’s than a grown man’s. But the overwhelming reason Patrick couldn’t have written the letter was the accusation against him. No man would admit such a thing about himself.”
“Did the writer claim to have known your husband well?”
“No. He’d never seen him until that night. He was a hobo who’d been camping out by the river. When the weather got too bad he decided to move on to Bakersfield. He was standing on the side of the road waiting to hitch a ride. Patrick stopped and picked him up. Then Patrick—oh, my God, I can’t believe it, I won’t!”
Quinn knew she did, though, and no amount of tears would wash away the belief. She was weeping, almost without sound, her hands covering her face, the tears slithering out between her fingers, down her wrists, into the sleeves of her denim jacket.
“Mrs. O’Gorman,” he said. “Martha. Listen to me, Martha. Perhaps Haywood was right and the letter was a sadistic joke.”
She raised her head and stared at him, looking like a forlorn child. “How could anyone hate me that much?”
“I don’t know. But a twisted person can hate anyone, with or without reason. What was the general tone of the letter?”
“Sorrow and regret. Fear, too, fear of dying. And hatred, but not directed against me. He seemed to loathe himself for what he’d done, and Patrick for making him do it.”
“Your husband made an improper advance, is that what you’ve been trying to say, Martha?”
“Yes.” It was hardly more than a sigh of admission.
“That’s why you burned the letter instead of showing it to the authorities?”
“I had to destroy it, for the sake of my children, myself—yes, and for Patrick’s sake, too. Don’t you see that?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“There was nothing to be gained by going to the police, and everything to be lost. A great deal’s been lost already, but it’s my own private personal loss, and I can stand that as long as my children are protected and Patrick’s good name is kept intact. As it will be. Even if you went to the police and told them everything I’ve said this afternoon, they couldn’t do a thing. I would deny every word of it, and so would Mr. Haywood. I have his promise. The letter never existed.”