I sat there a little longer, looking with a kind of cold detachment at the crumpled body, and then I got up and went back down the slope and around the end of the lake. By the time I got back to our side and the beach, the afternoon was almost gone. Crossing the beach toward the timber in front of the lodge, I thought for a moment that I saw Grandfather’s bright towel lying on the sand where he’d dropped it over two months ago, but of course the towel wasn’t really there at all.
I went up through the timber and into the lodge, and Cindy was in the living room with a glass in her hand. She was still wearing the brown velvet pajamas, and when I looked at her, there was still in my heart, in spite of everything, the pain of my love and the sadness of a great loss.
“It’s late, Tony. You’ve been gone a long time.”
“I went around to the other side of the lake,” I said. “I called on Evan Lane.”
The glass moved sharply in her hand. “Why, Tony? Why?”
“He wasn’t home when I got there,” I said, “and I sat on the veranda until he came. I learned something while I was sitting there, honey. I learned that you can’t see our beach or the raft at all from his place. He never used a telescope, as he said he did. He never saw me drown the old man. I kept trying to think how he could have known, and the only thing I could think was that you told him.”
I waited a few seconds, and she tried to speak, but no sound could pass through her constricted throat. After a while, I went on talking in a quiet kind of way with no anger in my voice, because there was really no anger in me.
“Yes, honey. You told him. You told him because you were hot for each other, and he could move in with a new kind of blackmail, and there would be nothing I could do about it because he knew I was a murderer. You talked about the big dream. The dream was there, all right, but I was never in it. When the time came, you’d have gone away, all right, but never with me. He was the one, honey. He was the one from the beginning, but first you had to have Grandfather dead. You had to have him dead for his money, because you wanted his money in addition to Evan’s. He didn’t have the guts to do his own killing. He didn’t have the guts, and you didn’t have the strength. So you drafted me. Well, the old man’s dead now, as you wanted him, and Evan Lane is dead, too. He’s lying on the slope in front of his lodge, and he’s dead forever.”
She tried again to speak, but nothing came from her throat except a dry sob.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’ll never know how sorry.”
I took out the gun, and the glass fell from her hand, and her voice came at last with a hot rush.
“I don’t care if he’s dead, Tony. Honest to God, I don’t. We can still go away together. We can still have the dream.”
“Yes,” I said. “We’ll go away together, honey. I’ve got our tickets right here in the gun. One way and a long way.”
“No, Tony. For God’s sake, no.” I pulled the trigger then, and there was only a little bang that wasn’t very loud at all, and a black spot appeared as if by magic in the golden area of skin just below the place where her heart lay hidden. Her legs folded slowly, lowering her to her knees, and she pressed one hand, with the fingers spread, over the black spot. A thin trickle of blood seeped out brightly between two of the fingers. The gold-flecked eyes were wide with shock and terrible supplication.
“Please, Tony. Please, please...”
Then she lay quietly on the floor, and I turned and walked out onto the veranda. I leaned against the railing, looking off into the timber where night had come, and from one of the trees came the crying of a crazy-voiced loon. I put the barrel of the gun into my mouth until the sharp sight was digging into the roof, and even then, when there was no reasonable alternative, I was a little surprised to realize I was actually going to do it.