M is for Malice

I tried to think what she'd do once she hit the main artery. She could choose left or right, setting out in either direction on foot. She could have hidden a bicycle somewhere in the brush. She might depend on her ability to thumb a ride. Maybe she'd called a taxicab and had it waiting when she emerged on the road. Again, I dismissed that option because I didn't really think she'd take the risk. She wouldn't want to have anyone who could identify or describe her later. She might have purchased another vehicle and parked on a side street, gassed up and ready to be driven away. I tried to remember what I knew of her and realized just how little it was. She was approaching forty. She was overweight. She made no effort to enhance her personal appearance. Given cultural standards, she'd made herself invisible. Ours is a society in which slimness and beauty are equated with status, where youth and charm are rewarded and remembered with admiration. Let a woman be drab or slightly overweight and the collective eye slides right by, forgetting afterward. Claire Maddison had achieved the ultimate disguise because, aside from the physical, she'd adopted the persona of the servant class. Who knows what conversations she'd been privy to straightening the bed pillows, changing the sheets. She'd run the household, served canapés, and freshened the drinks while the lords and ladies of the house had talked on and on, oblivious to her presence because she wasn't one of them. For Claire, it had been perfect. Their dismissal of her would have fueled her bitterness and hardened her determination to take revenge. Why should this family, largely made up of fakes, enjoy the privileges of money while she had nothing? Because of them, she'd been cheated of her family, her medical career. She'd been robbed, violated, and abused, and for this she blamed Guy.

I was now on the two-lane road that I was guessing defined the Malek property along its southernmost boundary. I found a city map in my glove compartment and flapped it open as I drove. I made a clumsy fold and propped it up against the steering wheel, searching for routes while I tried not to ram into telephone poles. I started with the obvious, turning off at the first street, driving in a grid. I should have waited for Dietz. One of us could have been watching for pedestrians while the other drove. How far could she get?

I returned to the main road and drove on for maybe half a mile. I spotted her tramping along a hundred yards ahead of me. She was wearing jeans and good walking shoes, toting a backpack, no hat. I rolled down the window on the passenger side. As soon as she heard the rattle of my VW, she glanced once in my direction and then stared doggedly at the pavement in front of her.

"Myrna, I want to talk to you."

"Well, I don't want to talk to you."

I idled alongside her while cars coming up behind me honked impatiently. I motioned them around, keeping an eye fixed on Myrna who trudged on, tears ru

"Come on, Myrna. Slow down. It's finally over," I said.

"No, it's not. It's never over until they pay up."

"Yeah, but how much? Listen, I understand how you feel. They took everything you had."

"The bastards," she said.

"Myrna…"

"My name is Claire."

"All right, Claire then. Here's the truth. You killed the wrong man. Guy never did anything to you or to your family. He's the only one who ever treated Patty well."

"Liar. You're lying. You made that up."

I shook my head. "Patty slept around. You know she had problems. Those were wild times. Dope and free love. We were all goofy with goodwill, with the notion of world peace. Remember? She was a flower child, an i

"She was schizophrenic," Claire spat.

"Okay. I'll take your word for it. She probably did LSD. She ate mushrooms. She stuck herself with things. And all the fellows took advantage of her, except Guy. I promise. He really cared about her. He told me about her and he was wistful and loving. He'd tried to get in touch. He wrote to her once, but she was dead by then. He had no idea. All he knew was he never heard from her and he felt bad about that."

"He was a turd."

"All right. He was a turd. He did a lot of shitty things back then, but at heart, he was a good man. Better than his brothers. They took advantage of him. Patty probably wished the baby was his, but it wasn't."

"Whose then?"

"Jack's. Paul Trasatti's. I'm not really sure how many men she slept with. Guy didn't forge the letters, either. That was Be

"They took everything away from me. Everything."

"I know. And now you've taken something away from them."

"What?" she said, her eyes blazing with disdain.

"You took the only decent man who ever bore the Malek name."

"Bader was decent."

"But he never made good. Your mother asked him for the money and he refused to pay."

"I didn't blame him for that."

"Too bad. You blamed Guy instead and he was i

"Fuck off," she said.

"What else? What's the rest? I know there's more to this," I said. "You wrote the anonymous letter to Guy, the one the cops have, right?"

"Of course. Don't be dumb. I wrote all the letters up on Be

"Very apt. A good choice," I said.

"That's not all, doll. You missed the best part… the obvious… you and that fancy-pants probate attorney. I found both wills months ago when I first started working here. I searched through Bader's files every chance I had. I tore up the second will so someone would have to go out looking for Guy. You did all the work for me. I appreciate that."

"What about the blood in your bathroom? Where did that come from?"

She held her thumb up. "I used a lancet. I left a couple drops on the patio and another in the truck. There's a shovel behind the tool shed. That's got blood on it, too."

"What about the dirt and gravel on the bathroom floor?"

"I thought Donovan should have a turn in the barrel. Didn't you think of him when you saw it?"

"Actually he did cross my mind. I'd have gone after him if I hadn't figured out what was going on. But what now? None of this is going to work. The whole plan's caving in. Trying to hike out was dumb. You weren't that hard to find."

"So what? I'm out of here. I'm tired. Get away from me," she said.

"Myrna…" I said, patiently.

"It's Claire," she snapped. "What do you want?"

"I want the killing to stop. I want the dying to end. I want Guy Malek to rest easy wherever he is."

"I don't care about Guy," she said. Her voice quaked with emotion and her face looked drawn and tense.

"What about Patty? Don't you think she'd care?"

"I don't know. I've lost track. I thought I'd feel better, but I don't." She walked on down the road with me trotting after her. "There aren't any happy endings. You have to take what you get."

"There may not be a happy ending, but there are some that satisfy."

"Name one."

"Come back. Own up to what you did. Turn and face your demons before they eat you alive."

She was weeping freely, and in some curious way, she seemed very beautiful, touched with grace. She turned and started walking backward, her arm out, hand turned up, as though thumbing a ride. I was walking at the same pace, the two of us face-to-face. She caught my eye and smiled, shot a look over her shoulder to check for traffic coming the other way.