How could the car roll? Hadn’t she set the automatic gear shift on P for park when he got out?
She tried to retrieve a visual memory of the gauge as she had last seen it, but nothing came. That meant she had not looked at the gauge when she got out of the car, so she could have left it in neutral instead of park. She remembered Job scolding her for doing that very thing one morning long ago when her car had rolled in the driveway at Leafy Way.
Was there nothing she could do?
Just stand as still as she possibly could to keep the car from rolling farther, and hang onto sanity somehow until somebody came.
But who would come to a lonely beach in October when night was falling? Did anyone know she was here?
Job and Jo Beth knew, but they would assume she had gone home by now. They would have no reason to search for her until tomorrow, when someone, perhaps Bill, discovered she was missing.
Could she bear it here alone all night? Would the prolonged pain cause permanent injury? What would happen if she fainted during the night and sagged between door and tree? Would the car roll again?
As the minutes ticked by, the temptation to risk turning in the vise to find a more comfortable position became almost irresistible. In another moment she would have yielded if a voice had not spoken.
“Well, Tash. You’ve really got yourself in trouble this time.”
“Oh, Job! Thank God you’re here. Can you release me? Or will you need help?”
She heard footsteps coming around the car, and there he was, a ghost in the deep twilight that was almost night. He stood and looked at her without moving. She began to feel like an insect pinned to a board by a painstaking but unsympathetic entomologist.
At last he spoke, softly.
“Why should I release you?”
18
“DID YOU PUSH the car?”
“No. I was watching you from an upper floor through binoculars, because I was curious to find out what you were going to do at the beach. There was just light enough for me to see what happened, so I walked down by a short cut through the woods to see if you were dead, but you’re not. It’s a pity the car didn’t roll a little farther. We’ll have to do something about that.”
“You killed Jeremy and Vivian.”
“Of course. I always hated them.”
“But Jeremy did so much for you!”
“He did nothing for me. Do you think it’s fun to play second fiddle all the time? Do you think it’s fun to be the power behind the throne and never sit on the throne yourself? Jeremy and Vivian were born to everything I had to struggle for. They took all the rights and privileges I never had for granted. Because they had never known privation, they gambled with opportunities I would have died rather than risk.
“Vivian could have had anything, done anything, gone anywhere. She had everything I ever wanted, and she threw it all away as if it weren’t worth having.”
“Maybe it wasn’t,” said Tash.
“How do you know? You’ve never had to go without anything you really wanted, have you?” Job took silence for consent and went on: “I knew something was wrong with Vivian, but I didn’t know what. It was a shock when I found out she was taking drugs, the kind of thing you associate with kids brutalized by war or the ghetto, not with ladies living at Leafy Way.
“If the newspapers had got hold of that story, it would have destroyed me through Jeremy, WIFE OF GOVERNOR WHO SIGNED BILL SOFT ON ADDICTS TAKES DRUGS HERSELF.
She was blithely risking my future and Jeremy’s, and for what? Kicks. And His Excellency, head in the clouds as usual, didn’t even know what was going on!”
“How did you find out?”
“I saw her coming out of the office of a doctor who has been under suspicion for some time. She couldn’t go to any doctor’s office often without starting rumors of serious illness sure to reach Jeremy eventually. So how did she usually communicate with her source of drugs? She couldn’t go through the switchboard at Leafy Way. She couldn’t use the mails regularly without exciting Hilary’s curiosity. She couldn’t go on such an errand in her own car or a taxi. What could she do? She could ask innocent visitors who came to Leafy Way to mail letters for her.
“I didn’t believe it even then, but I had to find out. I didn’t want private detectives, always worrying about losing their licenses. Set an addict to catch an addict. I wanted someone who knew drugs and the drug racket and took drugs himself. I’ve always had contacts with the fringe of the underworld. They have votes, too, and they understand patronage better than we do. So I found Halcon and hired him and his boys to watch Vivian when she went out and intercept any letters that she might be sending out through visitors, by following them and picking their pockets.
“You were the first victim. That letter you carried out of Leafy Way was addressed to Dr. Grant, the doctor whose office I had seen her leave. She was supposed to be one of his ordinary patients, but she wasn’t. That letter contained cash and instructions for delivering the ‘package’ to her maid, Juana, who would meet his messenger in the old, unguarded right of way, late that night.
“I was afraid to tell Jeremy. Usually, he was the easiest guy in the world to get along with, but if you went against his grain,
