hanged him for murder? Did I, hell!”
Skeptically, I said, “You think you should have been the star witness for the defense?”
“Am I getting through to you now?” said Harry, trading sarcasm.
Alice was hunched forward on the edge of the chair, pressing her whitened knuckles against her jaw. “How do you know that my daddy was innocent?”
So much for our ground rules, but who could have blamed her? The precise words she used weren’t planned. She was so keyed up that the mention of her daddy was automatic.
Harry was on to it like a terrier. “Just who are you?”
Alice stared at him in a petrified silence. I doubt if she was capable of speech.
I answered for her. “She’s the daughter of Duke and Eleanor Donovan.”
He gave a quick, nervous laugh. “You don’t say! Elly’s child? This is Elly’s child? Why didn’t you tell me, for Christ’s sake?”
I said truthfully, “We didn’t know how you’d react.”
He was busy adjusting, torn between anger and, I think, a residue of sentiment. “Can you beat that? I married her mother, did you know that? I’m her stepfather.” He took a couple of steps towards Alice in recognition that some paternal gesture was wanted and actually put out a hand towards her shoulder without quite making contact. He let it down slowly and asked, “Tell me, is Elly still-”
I spoke for Alice again. “She died.”
“No,” said Harry with the awkwardness of an ex-husband with a nonexistent record of concern, “That’s terrible. How?”
“A car crash earlier this year.”
He rolled his eyes upwards. “Nobody told me.”
I said unsparingly, “Is that surprising after you abandoned them?”
He turned away from me. “Alice, honey, if there’s anything you need…”
She said without looking up, “Just tell me about my daddy.”
Harry nodded, picked up his glass, and said, “First I need another drink. Anyone else?”
He left us alone.
I offered my Scotch and soda to Alice. “Want a sip of this?”
She shook her head.
I warned her, “Don’t expect too much from Harry. He could be stringing us along.”
I don’t know if he heard my opinion, but he was back in the room a second after I’d given it, ready to go, like an actor on a second take. This time with more attack. “Okay, if you want to know the truth about your daddy, Alice, you picked the right guy. He and I were buddies from way back. We belonged to a boys’ baseball club in Queens. Does that surprise you?” He mimed the pitcher’s action. “And your mom used to come and watch. She was in high school with Duke. Eleanor Beech. Blonde like you and just as pretty. Well, almost. I could show you pictures.”
I said acidly, “The words will do.”
“Whatever you want. Elly Beech was Duke’s girl, and I used to date her sometimes.” He smiled at the memory.
No, I thought, you never had problems, you bastard, but you gave your wives plenty.
Harry was on to his service career. He’d enlisted in December 1941, the day after America entered the war. “I was smart. The first volunteers took quick promotion. Inside eighteen months I was made up to sergeant. I told Duke, and he signed on as soon as he reached the age, in ’42. He needed the pay to marry Elly, which he did, sometime in ’43.”
Alice supplied the date: “April fifth.”
Harry flashed her a broad smile. “Thanks, sweetheart. You must be right, because they weren’t married more than a couple of months before it was June and we were drafted to Shepton Mallet, England. Great name, crummy place. A stone cross, a prison, and five thousand GIs bored out of their skulls. Is it any wonder that I got reduced to the ranks for bringing girls onto the base at night?”
I couldn’t trust myself to answer, so I said, “I’ve never been to Shepton Mallet.”
“Don’t bother,” said Harry, and moved on. “So I was a private soldier, and naturally I linked up with my buddy, Duke. We’d borrow a jeep and go for rides. There was a lot of sympathy for me in the MT section.”
“And Duke?” I put in quickly. “What was his standing?”
“A regular guy. Popular. Good musician. Wrote his own songs. Anyone who could entertain us was made, believe me.
I nodded. “Barbara told me about the Columbus Day concert at the base. She was highly impressed with Duke’s singing.”
“Is that a fact? Yeah, I guess he could have made it as a songwriter. Country and western more than pop. He was working on a way of using the Somerset dialect in his songs. The way they talked down here amused him.”
“I know. I used to collect words and phrases for him. He made lists.”
Harry drew on his cigar and looked at me with a shade more respect. “That’s right. He did. Matter of fact, Duke and his lists of words came in handy when I was dating Sally.”
“You couldn’t understand her?”
He pulled a face. “Christ, no, she wasn’t a total hick. What I mean is, she was strictly brought up. Her parents didn’t like her walking out with a GI, but a foursome was okay, so I persuaded Duke to make up the numbers with Barbara.” He grinned complacently. “I told him it was a great way to get more Somerset words, and he bought it.”
I grinned back. “Never.”
“Straight up. I’m not kidding.”
This simply didn’t square with what I knew about Barbara. She’d walked up the lane almost every evening that autumn, telling her parents she was meeting Sally, when she was actually meeting Duke. She’d looked into my room sometimes at the end of an evening, flushed with love, her lips swollen from kissing. I
I told Harry, “Maybe he was kidding
Harry conceded a little. “Sure, he was doing me a favor. He was a great buddy.”
I spelled it out for him. “Duke and Barbara were lovers.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath from Alice.
Harry said, “No chance.”
“For Christ’s sake, she was expecting his child!”
Alice made a shrill, protesting cry. I avoided looking at her. I wanted this between Harry and me.
Harry slung his half-smoked cigar into the fireplace and stepped towards my chair, jowls quivery, red-faced with outrage. “Stand up and say that.”
I replied through the fumes, “Read the postmortem report. She was two months’ pregnant.”
He grabbed my sweater and tried to haul me upwards, but I gripped his forearm and resisted. My arms and shoulders are strong. I use them more than most people.
We might have stayed locked for some time if Alice hadn’t snatched up my stick and jabbed it hard into Harry’s ribs. He let go and staggered back, knocking over a glass-topped table and my drink as he went.
Alice was a revelation, eyes flashing behind the gold frames. She told her stepfather, “Quit it, will you?”
Massaging his side, Harry said thickly, “He insulted my buddy.”
Alice glared at him and said, “Loyalty isn’t your strong suit, Harry.” Then, to my surprise and extreme annoyance, she wheeled on me and said, “Quit bugging him with stupid crap like that. We came here to listen, not start a fight. This is
It was a kick in the teeth. All my animosity came surging back. For this headstrong, father-fixated girl I’d
