Rough Cider

wonder she was an alcoholic?”

“What things did she tell you?”

“About Barbara. Barbara’s secrets.”

My mouth suddenly felt drained. Trying to sound unconcerned, I said, “Oh, yes?”

“Listen to this, Sinclair. Barbara was nuts on Morton. She really loved the guy. She was carrying his baby.”

Pulses started throbbing in my head. It isn’t easy after twenty years to accept that you were totally wrong about someone you would have gone to the wall for. I’d heard this from Alice, but she couldn’t have known for certain. She’d guessed about Barbara and Morton, and I hadn’t believed her. Deep down I’d felt sure that Sally would expose it as a cruel defamation.

But it wasn’t. Barbara, my Barbara, had misled me. She’d used me to promote the lie that she wanted Duke. I was forced to accept it now.

I said in a dry, distant voice, “Barbara told Sally this?”

“Sure.” Harry locked one of his forefingers over the other and said, “Those two girls were like this. Barbara confided to Sal that she let Cliff Morton make it with her whenever he wanted. But old man Lockwood and his lady didn’t care for Morton at all. He was bad news.”

“That part is true,” I admitted. “What else?”

“They ordered Barbara to stop seeing the guy. This was after George Lockwood caught them together.”

“In the orchard?”

“Right. Barbara was shattered. The poor kid was pregnant, and on top of that, Morton’s call-up papers had just arrived. Then Morton came up with a plan. He wasn’t a total jerk. He offered to marry the girl. He figured he could dodge the call-up by taking Barbara to Ireland. Neutral territory. She could marry him there and have the baby.” Harry paused for breath, studying my reception of the story. I must have looked poleaxed. “This is on the level, Sinclair.”

“Is that all?”

He wound himself up again. “Hell, no. There’s more. They had to get new identities. Morton knew a guy in the Town Hall who said he would fix it in a matter of days if the money was right. Then they’d find a boatman along the Bristol Channel willing to ship them to Ireland. Meantime, Morton needed a place to lay up. So Barbara came up with a suggestion. She said he could hide in one of the barns on the farm. She’d keep him supplied with food. And that’s what happened.”

I screwed up my face in disbelief. “He was there on the farm?”

“Right up to the day you shot him.”

I was so stunned by the information that I allowed the remark to stand. Harry had got the dumb, undivided attention he wanted.

“Barbara was smart. She encouraged her parents to think she was seeing Duke, and they didn’t mind too much. In their eyes anyone was better than Morton, even a GI.” A nervous grin streaked across his lips. “People generally locked up their daughters when the Yanks hit town. Not the Lockwoods. Barbara put it around that she had something going with Duke. As you know, she went out with him a couple of times. And she used you to stoke up the story.”

And I’d repeated it at Duke’s trial. My skin prickled. “Did Sally tell you that or are you embroidering?”

“She had it from Barbara. Gospel truth. You got to believe it.”

I did. I knew, sickeningly, resoundingly, that it was true.?d been pitchforked into a living hell. My discredited evidence had helped to hang an innocent man.

At last Harry had dried up. The next move was up to me, and I was in no shape for action. He sensed the softening in my resolve, or just the wish to be rid of him and work things out for myself, because his eyes traveled upwards from the gun. He was assessing his chances of getting oµt alive.

Stalemate.

I wouldn’t shoot him in Cold blood, but it wasn’t safe to lower the gun. He couldn’t move and neither could I, without my stick. I couldn’t even escort him to his car and send him on his way.

Rashly, through my tormented emotions, I grasped at reason. Harry believed?d shot Morton and killed Sally.

I said, “Do me the favor of answering one straightforward question. If Morton was Barbara’s lover, why would I have shot him?”

“Jealousy.”

“For Christ’s sake. I was in short trousers.”

“I was there. Remember?” said Harry, picking up confidence by the second. “You had a crush on the girl, right? Puppy love. I saw it. Sally saw it. Barbara used it. Her fatal mistake. Never mess with a kid’s emotions.”

I said heatedly, bitterly, “What am I supposed to have done? Shot Morton in a jealous passion and cut up the body? At nine years old? Who are you kidding?”

Harry was sounding more in control than I. “No,” he said evenly. “Duke disposed of the body. He took pity on you.”

“What?”

“He was like a father to you. He’d do anything to get you off the hook. He drove back to the farm that night, hacked off the head and put it in the cider barrel, and then transported the rest someplace else, miles away.”

I was practically speechless. “He didn’t tell you that.”

“No. But it has to be true. It was typical of the guy. He adored kids.”

“It doesn’t have to be true at all.”

Harry was determined to complete the explanation. “When they finally caught up with him, he refused to put the finger on you. Stupid and brave. That was Duke Donovan.”

“And you think I kept silent at the trial?” I shouted at him as my anger erupted. “Allowed them to hang the man who’s supposed to have saved me? What kind of vicious bastard do you take me for? If I could have thought of anything to stop them hanging Duke, I’d have spoken up.”

“The guy was innocent,” said Harry. “I told you he was innocent.”

“I know. It breaks my heart. It’s monstrous. Hideous. But I didn’t know at the time. For twenty years I swallowed the story that he was guilty. I’m bloody certain now that he wasn’t, and I’m going to find the killer. I don’t know for sure who it was, but I know where to go.”

A pause.

“The farm?”

I nodded and made a superhuman effort to sound rational.

“Do you know why I’m so certain?”

“Sally?”

“Yes. She was killed because of what she would have told me.

“You think whoever murdered Morton also…”

“Right.”

We faced each other in a tense, thoughtful silence, each wiser yet with our impasse, unresolved. I could have said more. I elected not to. What I’d expressed was spontaneous, impassioned, and enough.

Finally, Harry took the initiative. He said, “Okay, my friend, call me crazy, but I believe you. If I’m right that you didn’t kill Morton or Sally, I don’t have to worry. You won’t shoot me. So All tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to walk right out of here, get in my car, and drive away. Understand?”

I gave a nod.

He wanted extra assurance. “You’re not planning to stop me? In that case, would you lower the gun?”

This, in essence, was what the superpowers had debated ever since Hiroshima. There had to be some trust between us. Disarmament was the only sane way forward. I glanced down and put my good foot on the lead piping he’d threatened me with. I stared at Harry. Then I slowly planted the gun on my lap and placed my hands on the arms of the chair.

Harry dipped his head in recognition, took a couple of tentative sideways steps, and started across the room towards the door. I followed him with my eyes, making no move.

A sitting duck.

It happened at speed, though I see it now in slow motion.