“They were. I picked them up,” he said.
“There wasn’t much.”
“No.”
Between their short exchanges hung a thousand things unsaid, a thousand things not for the ears of cabbies, things better left unsaid even to each other. But they would say them anyway, Beth thought with a shudder.
Chapter Twenty-one
HE CLOSED THE DOOR OF THE ROOM HE HAD TAKEN IN THE Blackwell and turned to face her. Beth couldn’t look at him. She sat down on the bed—a spacious double bed that unnerved her slightly—and kicked off her shoes. Slowly she glanced up at him.
“I’ll order us a drink if you like,” he said.
“I’d love one,” she said thankfully, and he called room service and ordered two vodka collinses. Beth was burning to know by what miracle she had been released, but she didn’t want to drag it out of him. Let him tell her in his own good time. He understood how anxious she was. She supposed he was waiting for the drinks to come and lighten the atmosphere a little.
“I’m going to take a bath and change my clothes,” she said.
“Good idea.” He showed her where he had put her things and she took a change of underwear and a dressing gown into the bathroom with her and bathed herself, weeping softly with relief in her first privacy in forty-eight hours. Warm water, a leisurely bath, a refreshing drink on the way—all the foolish little symbols of a serious and necessary condition to her life: Freedom.
Only Charlie disturbed her. She had been so glad to see him that she had run to his arms and wept. And now she sat in her tub suddenly full of misgivings about him again. She knew enough now to know she loved him, in a way. Only it was the wrong way; it was not sufficient for him or for a marriage. It was enough to make her want him forever as a friend, too little to make her want him back as a lover. If only he could understand that. If only he could accept it. She tried, while she bathed, to clear her mind and think of a way to tell him her feelings which would not offend him.
When she came out, clean and fresh and powdered, the drinks had arrived. He lighted a cigarette for her and handed her a glass.
“How did it happen?” she said, sitting down again on the bed. She couldn’t hold it back any longer. She wondered why he was so reluctant to get started with it. The whole thing seemed slightly fantastic. A little less than an hour ago she had been a prisoner in jail, a murder suspect; now she was free.
“Well…” He turned his back to her and gazed out the window. “Heinrich saved you—” he began.
“Heinrich?” She broke in. “Who’s he?”
“He’s a—well, a sort of detective we hired—”
“Who hired?” she demanded.
“Your Uncle John and I. Are you going to let me tell you this, Beth, or are you going to keep interrupting me?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, but she felt the flush of indignation on her cheek.
“Beth, we hired him because we were so damned scared,” Charlie said suddenly, turning to face her. His voice, his gestures, pleaded for her understanding. “He was supposed to be the best and we wanted only the best. He did a couple of jobs for Uncle John once, long ago. John trusts the guy and I went along. I was out of my mind worried about you the first couple of weeks. When John phoned to say you’d run away from him, too, I told him to go ahead and hire Heinrich.”
“I see.” She looked down into her glass, humiliated.
“We never meant to—to spy on you, darling,” Charlie said. “But when he found you, in New York, we were—well, anything but reassured by what he told us. We told him to stay with it, and he took a room next to yours at the Beaton.”
“He what?” she cried. “Oh, Charlie, that was going too far.” My God, we even shared the same bathroom! she thought.
“It was going pretty far, maybe, but he was doing his job, Beth.”
“Well, I guess there’s nothing I can tell you about my stay in New York that he hasn’t already told you!” she exclaimed.
“Not much,” Charlie said quietly, as if embarrassed.
“I suppose he was peeking through the keyhole when Vega showed up,” Beth said, near to tears with indignation. The fact that it might have saved her life was lost momentarily in the shame of the situation.
“Not exactly. He had the room wired,” Charlie said. “He recorded everything. He just gave the tapes to the police and explained to them that Vega was in love with you. The whole thing became clear as a bell. She damn near killed a kid in Pasadena named P.K. Schaefer. With that same gun. P.K. took a chance and ran for it. Vega fired and missed her.” He shrugged. “Well, Heinrich’s testimony and P.K.’s and the doctor’s Vega was seeing—they were too much for the police. It was plain that she was unhinged. And that you didn’t do it.”
There was a silence then while they were both absorbed in their thoughts.
“My children,” Beth said. “My poor kids.”
“They don’t know anything about it,” Charlie said quickly. “They’ve been in Chicago all this time. I’m going to keep them there till it blows over. You’ve been exonerated, Beth.”
“But Vega was a Lesbian. That part of it you can never wipe out. That part will haunt me. I guess that’s what she meant by killing herself to make me suffer.”
“I guess it is,” he said. “I heard the tapes,” he added diffidently. “She sounded pretty desperate.”
Another pause. Beth finished her drink and Charlie ordered two more.
“How can you take those children back to Pasadena to live?” she asked.
“It doesn’t need to be Pasadena,” he said. “California’s a big state.”
“But the business is in Pasadena. It’s all established. You can’t just pick up and move out.”
“For something like this I
