“Movie star.”
“You were pretending to be a movie star?”
“Oh no. I was her sister.”
“Then who was the movie star?”
“Nobody. Nobody real, I mean,” she added hastily. “I used to have lots of imaginary playmates when I was a child. Sometimes I still do. You didn’t notice my new dress.”
“Of course I noticed. It’s very pretty. Did your mother make it for you?”
“Oh no. She bought it this afternoon. It cost an enormous amount of money.”
“How much?”
She hesitated. “Well, I’m not supposed to broadcast it but I guess it’s O.K., being as it’s only you. It cost nearly twenty dollars. But my mother says it’s worth every penny of it. She wanted me to have one real boughten dress in case a special occasion comes up and I meet Sheridan at it. Then he’ll realize how well she takes care of me and loves me.”
In case I meet Sheridan. The words started a pulse beating in Mac’s temple like a drumming of danger. He knew what the special occasion would have to be, Kate had told him a dozen times: “He’ll see Mary Martha over my dead body and not before.”
“Louise?” Charlie peered at her through the darkness, shielding his eyes with one hand as though from a midday sun. “No. You don’t look like Louise.”
“It’s dark. You can’t see me very well.”
“Yes, I can. I know who you are. You get off these tracks immediately or I’ll tell your parents, I’ll report you to the school principal.”
“Charlie—”
“Please,” he said. “Please go home, little girl.”
“The little girls are all at home, Charlie. I’m here. Louise.”
He sat down suddenly on the edge of one of the railroad ties, rubbing his eyes with his fists like a boy awakened from sleep. “How did you find me?”
“Is that important?”
“Yes.”
“All right then. I could see you were troubled, and sometimes when you’re troubled you go down to the warehouse. You feel secure there, you know what’s expected of you and you do it. I saw you looking in the window of the office as if you wanted to be inside. I guess the library serves the same purpose for me. We’re not very brave or strong people, you and I, but we can’t give up now without a fight.”
“I have nothing to fight for.”
“You have life,” she said. “Life itself.”
“Not for long.”
“Charlie, please—”
“Listen to me. I saw the child last night, I spoke to her. I don’t — I can’t swear what happened after that. I might have frightened her. Maybe she screamed and I tried to shut her up and I did.”
“We’ll find out. In time you’ll remember everything. Don’t worry about it.”
“It seemed so clear to me a couple of hours ago. I was the witness then. It felt so good being the witness, with the law on my side, and the people, the nice people. But of course that couldn’t last.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’re not on my side and never will be. I can hear them, in my ears I can hear them yelling, get him, get him good, he killed her, kill him back.”
She was silent. A long way off a train wailed its warning. She thought briefly of stepping into the middle of the tracks and standing there with Charlie until the train came. Then she reached down and took hold of his hand. “Come on, Charlie. We’re going home.”
Even before Mac opened the door he could hear Kate’s troubled breathing. She was lying on her back on the bed, her eyes closed, her arms outstretched with the palms of her hands turned up as if she were begging for something. Her hair was carefully combed and she wore a silky blue dress Mac had never seen before. The new dress and the neatness of the room gave the scene an air of unreality as if Kate had intended at first only to play at suicide but had gone too far. On the bedside table were five empty bottles, which had contained pills, and a sealed envelope. The envelope bore no name and Mac assumed the contents were meant for him since he was the one Mary Martha had been told to call at eleven o’clock.
“Kate. Can you hear me, Kate? There’s an ambulance on the way. You’re going to be all right.” He pressed his face against one of her upturned palms. “Kate, my dearest, please be all right. Please don’t die. I love you, Kate.”
She moved her head in protest and he couldn’t tell whether she was protesting the idea of being all right or the idea of his loving her.
She let out a moan and some words he couldn’t understand.
“Don’t try to talk, Kate. Save your strength.”
“Sheridan’s — fault.”
“Shush, dearest. Not now.”
“Sheridan—”
“I’ll look after everything, Kate. Don’t worry.”
The ambulance came and went, its siren loud and alien in the quiet neighborhood. Mary Martha stood on the front porch and watched the flashing red lights dissolve into the fog. Then she followed Mac back into the house. She seemed more curious than frightened.
“Why did my mother act so funny, Mac?”
“She took too many pills.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Will she be gone one or two days?”
“Maybe more than that. I’m not sure.”
“Who will take care of me?”
“I will.”
She gave him the kind of long, appraising look that he’d seen Kate use on Sheridan. “You can’t. You’re only a man.”
“There are different kinds of men,” Mac said, “just as there are different kinds of women.”
“My mother doesn’t think so. She says men are all alike. They do bad things like Sheridan and Mr. Brant.”
“Do you know what Mr. Brant did?”
“Sort of, only I’m not supposed to talk about the Brants, ever. My mother and I made a solemn pact.”
Mac nodded gravely. “As a lawyer, I naturally respect solemn pacts. As a student of history, though, I’m aware that some of them turn out badly and have to be broken.”
“I’m sleepy. I’d better go to bed.”
“All right. Get your pajamas on and I’ll bring you up some hot chocolate.”
“I don’t like hot chocolate — I mean, I’m allergic to it. Anyway, we don’t have any.”
“When someone gives me three reasons instead of one, I’m inclined not to believe any of them.”
“I don’t care,” she said, but her eyes moved anxiously around the room. “I mean, it’s O.K. to tell a little lie now and then when you’re keeping a solemn and secret pact.”
“But it isn’t a secret any more. I know about it, and pretty soon Lieutenant Gallantyne will know and he’ll come here searching for Jessie. And I think he’ll find her.”
“No. No, he won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because.”
“He’s a very good searcher.”
“Jessie’s a very good hider.” She stopped, clapping both hands to her mouth as if to force the words back in. Then she began to cry, watching Mac carefully behind her tears to see if he was moved to pity. He wasn’t, so she wiped her eyes and said in a resentful voice, “Now you’ve spoiled everything. We were going to be sisters. We were going to get a college education and good jobs so we wouldn’t always be waiting for the support check in the mail. My mother said she would fix it so we would never have to depend on bad men like Sheridan and Mr. Brant.”
“Your mother wasn’t making much sense when she said that, Mary Martha.”
“It sounded sensible to me and Jessie.”
“You’re nine years old.” So is Kate, he thought, picturing the three of them together the previous night: Jessie in a state of shock, Mary Martha hungry for companionship, and Kate carried away by her chance to strike back at the whole race of men. That first moment of decision, when Jessie had appeared at the house with her story about Virginia Arlington and her father, had probably been one of the high spots in Kate’s life. It was too high to last. Her misgivings must have grown during the night and day to such proportions that she couldn’t face the future.