Suspended Sentences

Wrapped around the golf ball and tied with a rubber band was a crumbled copy of that newspaper photo of the chalk outline on the pavement.

Trembling, she went into the kitchen, lit a gas ring on the stove, and set fire to the bit of newsprint. She watched it curl up and turn black, and wished it were Murdoch.

In the morning she called Charles at his office but the secretary told her Charles was out of town until Monday.

She went around the apartment half of the morning, pacing aimlessly, the hard leather heels of her shoes clicking angrily on the floor like dice. By noon she was distraught enough to think about having a drink, but she didn’t. Instead she went down to the machine in the lobby and for the first time in three years bought a pack of cigarettes. A folder of matches came with it. The elevator had a big “No Smoking” sign, but she lit up anyway before she’d even got out of it.

She drew a deep chestful of smoke and it nauseated her and made her instantly, terrifyingly dizzy; she nearly fell to the floor, and had to lean with both hands on her doorknob until the wave of sick dizziness passed. She went inside, stumbled to the bathroom, threw the burning cigarette in the toilet, threw the pack of cigarettes in the wastebasket, leaned both arms against the sink, and stood there, head down, until she was sure she wasn’t going to throw up. Then she looked up into the medicine-cabinet mirror.

Go ahead. Go to pieces. Fall apart.

“The hell,” she said aloud. “It’s just what he wants me to do. I’ll be damned if I’ll give him the satisfaction.”

She found the golf ball where she’d thrown it into the bedroom wastebasket. Feeling cold and angry and determinedly calm now, she put the golf ball in her handbag and went downstairs to the parking lot. It was nearly one o’clock. Murdoch would be home for lunch, probably. He sold real estate in a crummy office out west of town but he usually came home for lunch every day. The housekeeper prepared it for him and always had it ready for him when he arrived, which usually was at about 1:15.

Murdoch was a widower, a very close-mouthed man although not normally a surly one — he had a salesman’s hearty but insincere graces, although his gift of gab was one he saved up for customers and rarely displayed in his home neighborhood. Richard had invited him over once or twice in the old days but he’d been a singularly boring di

Basically her relationship with Murdoch had always been distant — cordial enough, but indifferent. About three months after the divorce Murdoch had made a sort of half-hearted and apparently dutiful gesture of inviting her out to di

He was physically unpleasant; she found him nearly repulsive, although she knew women who liked his type — he was muscular enough, a macho character with huge arms and a big chest and military sort of crew-cut, flat on top. He had a beer-drinker’s gut and the hands of a mountain gorilla; he looked more like a heavy-equipment mechanic than a realtor.

Mainly he sold small pre-war houses, in rundown areas, to blue-collar workers and their families. Presumably he looked to them like the kind of man they could trust. The word around the neighborhood was that his realty operation was a bit on the shady side — something to do with kickbacks to building inspectors and bribes to government mortgage people, Nobody had ever proved anything against Murdoch but he had just a slightly unsavory aura. In any case, she had always thought him unattractive, to say the least. But up to the time of Amy’s death she had not thought of him as menacing.

Now, however, there was clearly no question but that he was executing a deliberate and careful scheme of harassment against her. Revenge for Amy’s death.

When she turned the car into the lane Murdoch’s semi-antique Chevy station wagon was in the driveway. Good; it meant he’d come home for lunch. Carolyn got out of the car and walked halfway up the walk toward the Murdoch porch. It was one of those old clapboard places with the porch ru

She fumbled in her handbag a moment and then looked up. Nobody was in sight. She gave the golf ball a good strong throw. It made a satisfying noise when it crashed through Murdoch’s front window.

And it brought him boiling out of the place, as she’d thought it would. “Damn irresponsible kids —” he was roaring; then he recognized her and his face froze and he went absolutely still.

She spoke up in a clear strong voice. “I’ve had enough harassment from you. I’m sorry, very sorry, about what happened to Amy and I wish I could make it up to you. I know you don’t understand this, or believe it, but I feel nearly as bad about it as you do. But I’ve had enough. Harassing me won’t bring her back to you — you ought to know that. Now you’ve had your revenge and you’ve had your satisfaction and you’ve made me feel absolutely rotten all these weeks, and now I want you to stop it. Do you understand? Stop it!”

He hadn’t said a word; he still didn’t. His eyes narrowed down to slits and he merely watched her, unblinking. But she saw that one fist slowly clenched and unclenched. It kept doing that, with a terrible slow rhythm, closing and opening.

He didn’t respond to her words at all. She looked at the massive strength of him and felt appalled by her own temerity but, just the same, she stepped forward — five paces, six, seven — until she was nearly nose-to-nose with him, and she shouted in his face with blind thundering rage: “Leave me alone, Murdoch! Do you hear me? Leave me alone!” And she slapped him, as hard as she could, across the face.

He didn’t even move. He was like some sort of immutable granite rock.

She stood trembling, hyperventilating; she raised her arm again, to strike him, but he stirred then. It was as if he didn’t even see her threatening rising arm. He merely turned slowly on one heel and walked back up the steps to the porch.

She screamed at his back: “Did you hear me, Murdoch?”

He didn’t answer. He just disappeared inside; the screen door slapped shut behind him.

Lacking the courage to follow him into his house, she was forced to turn away and get in the car. She sat trembling for quite a while. She kept expecting to see his face at a window but he never appeared. Finally she drove off.

The phone: Charles. “Hi. I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch. I was out of town.”

“That’s what your secretary said.”

“I, uh, hell, this is awkward. Look, my wife and I — we’ve, uh, well, we’re going to give it another try. We’re trying for a reconciliation. For the sake of the kids, you know, and — well, we’ve been together a long time, nearly twenty years now. A lot of shared experience there. A lot of understanding. I think we may make it. I know it doesn’t usually work out, but we want to give it a try. I thought I’d better tell you…”

“I understand, Charles. Don’t worry about me.”

“Are you all right? No more trouble with Murdoch, I hope.”