Chapter 18
Daylight came again, a harsh, glaring daylight to which she awoke because the telephone at her side had pierced her ears with a shrill knife sound ... and because someone else was ringing the door chimes.
Nadine picked up the phone. A strange male voice asked for Mrs. Whitten.
"This is Mrs. Whitten speaking."
"I wonder if you'd answer a few questions, please? This is Cliff Farraday, International News...."
Nadine dropped the receiver. Think. Time to think before she answered questions.
The door chimes sounded more insistently. She threw a quilted robe over her nightgown and padded shakily toward the front door. It must be late. Paul must be at his office. It was Mrs. Sefcik, probably, though she wasn't due until Friday.
Nadine opened the door.
There were two of them. Pleasant-looking chaps, one with a camera, one who addressed her like a long-lost buddy. "Nadine Whitten? I wonder if you'd be good enough to...."
Intuitively, she started to slam the door, accomplishing the feat, but not until after a blinding light had flashed in her face and the cameraman had purred a satisfied, "Thank you ... thank you very much."
Nadine leaned against the closed door, panting. The telephone had started to ring once more and she stayed fixed in her position until it stopped. Then, cautious, peering through the slit where the living room draperies came together, she watched the two newsmen drive away in a new Ford sedan ... and noted that the Chrysler was still in the driveway. Paul had either called a cab or he was still in the house.
He was gone. Paul was gone, and a frantic surveyal of Sherry's room showed that she was gone, too.
Wild inventory of Sherry's closet ... Paul's shirt drawer ... the top drawer of his chest left open ... empty. Everything empty.
Where had they gone ... and why had they hurried so? She dialed the agency. Mr. Whitten was not available, said Margaret at the switchboard. "But this is Mrs. Whitten."
A long, puzzling silence. Then, "Would you want to ... speak to Mr. Oliver?"
Something in the girl's tone warned Nadine that speaking to Mr. Oliver might be a depressing experience.
"No. No, thank you. When my husband gets in, would you have him call me?"
"But, I thought...."
"Yes?"
"You know he's taken a leave of absence. Everyone here's awfully upset. He called this morning after the ... excuse me ... there's another call...."
"Never mind," Nadine said. She hung up.
Nearly noon. Nadine sat beside the phone, dredging her mind. There must be someone to call ... end the suspense ... learn how much was known, where Paul had gone ... what to expect. There had to be someone to call! Unbearable to be alone!
When the phone resumed its shrill whine, she sighed heavily and lifted the receiver. "Hello?"
"Nadine...."
It was Leila. "Oh, it's you. I was afraid...."
"I thought you might like to come over. There's no one outside now. Lock the door and hurry."
"Why should I...."
"Unless you want the newshounds to eat you alive. I saw the first contingent ... there's bound to be more."
Nadine began to cry. Unphoney, unpremeditated, unrehearsed and quiet tears. "Leila, they're gone! Paul and Sherry...."
"Paul's taken her to a hotel. I can't tell you where. Paul wasn't sure himself when they left."
"But they...."
"I don't know how long he can keep Sherry away from newspapers or the radio or a TV set. But you can't blame him for trying. Are you coming over?"
"What's in the papers? Did they...?"
"I'll talk to you when you get here."
"You haven't seen the paper," Leila surmised, pouring coffee. "Do you want to drink this first?"
Nadine shook her head. "No." She seemed to be speaking aloud, but her words emerged barely audible. "Let's see it. Get it over with."
Leila produced the morning news. One of the less conservative afternoon papers would dress the story up with the doorway shot of Mrs. Whitten in boudoir regalia and tousled hair. But the early version was enough to drain blood from the veins:
There was a headline in which "model,"
"murdered," and "artist" had been valued above "pregnant,"
"mistress" and "Lothario" in the sub-head.
Yet how frustratingly varied had been the caption-writer's choice of juicy phrases ... and names!
In the straightly reported story, Monty's body had been discovered by a Miss Cassandra du Val, a gypsy-haired "beatnik friend," who was depicted in an adjoining column, holding a Siamese cat and viewing the murder scene in the company of a stoic detective.
Apparently the solution had not taxed even the greenest addition to the homicide squad; Cass had only to mention a jilted expectant mother and all the pieces had fallen into place. Ann Helsley's picture occupied two columns.
Nadine gave only superficial interest to these dismal facts.
It was the feature story, the circulation-boosting feature that paralyzed her sight; the reproduced fragments of her own handwriting, plus someone else's, with names circled by a news-wise editor; names pointing up the infinite variety of Monty Carrell's lovers ... and the romantic link between Monty's women and other men.
The letters from socially prominent Mrs. Roger Brent Westphall, patroness of the arts and sponsor of the "artist's recent one-man show" were probably playing hell, this morning, with North Shore suburbia.
And in Riverdale, Warren Ryner, the "playboy heir to the Weidberger brewing millions" could see his name mentioned beside that of a "wealthy advertising executive, partner in the firm of Oliver, Lindsay and Whitten, Inc.," with a delectable side-notation about Vincent Allegretti, "pinbail king and brother of the notorious Louis Allegretti, St. Louis racketeer serving time for income-tax evasion."
How diligently the members of the Fourth Estate had labored in the still hours before daybreak! How painstakingly they had pried and dug, exposed and shattered ... all because a frightened girl had borrowed a gun from her father's desk and spoken the age-old message of a woman spurned!
"Thorough, isn't it?" Leila said when the paper had been dropped to the floor. "Thorough, complete. Nobody left untouched, nothing left unsaid."
Nadine looked deep into her coffee cup.
"I feel sorry for all of them," Leila went on. "They'll hurt a long time. But somehow they'll recover. Maybe they'll come out of it wiser or ... finer, the way metals are purified by fire. But you? You know why I feel sorrier for you?" She didn't wait for an answer. "I don't think you'll learn anything, Nadine. I don't think you'll change. Maybe you'll hurt as badly as the rest of them ... Paul ... Warren ... all of them. And maybe more, because I think you've lost them, Nadine. Really lost them. But tomorrow, if you had it to do over again, you wouldn't be able to stop yourself, would you? As long as you live, hell or high water, you're going to go on being Nadine."
By ten-thirty that evening the concern about reporters seemed needless. Nadine would have preferred to spend the night at Leila's, but Leila hadn't made the suggestion and there was nothing to do but lock herself inside the empty house. And to lick the barbs that had been thrust into her as an aftermath of the initial wound.
Gwen had phoned Leila earlier. Boiling, fuming, furious. Finished with Vince ... and if she ever got her hands on that lousy bitch...! Leila had not mentioned Nadine's presence. And Gwen had calmed down enough to report the latest developments from the Ryner household.
Mabel had piled Bucky and Junior into her car and headed for northern Wisconsin. Gwen was concerned about her. Nobody ought to drive in that hysterical condition. Mabel had gone completely to pieces, alternately thanking God that Mama and Papa Weidberger hadn't lived to see the family name dragged through the mud, and harrassing Jim Oliver at the agency, threatening to withdraw the Weidberger account, then apologizing; it wasn't Paulie Whitten's fault ... he had gotten the dirtiest deal of all. But Mabel was going to call the family lawyer about Wardy. After all she had done for Wardy ... as faithful as she had been to Wardy! But what was she going to tell the boys?
Warren was in no shape to help, Gwen revealed. At around two-thirty, Essie, the Ryner cook, had phoned Doc Ayers from the house. Mr. Ryner wasn't himself, Essie had said. (Gwen had gotten the story from Essie first-hand later.)
Doc Ayers had rushed over to find Warren beating the desk in his study with his fists, asking over and over, "What's Bucky going to think about me? What's Junior going to think?" And after Doc had given him a sedative and made several discreet calls to a hush-hush hospital that specialized in you-know-what-kind-of-cases, Warren said nothing more about his sons; he allowed himself to be led like a docile child, but repeatedly asked in a plaintive voice, "Has Paul said anything to you, Doc? About me? He's my best friend ... my buddy from overseas. Has he said anything to you about me, Doc?"
Nadine's eyes had riveted themselves to the luminous clock. In the pressing darkness she saw that it was after midnight when she heard the key turned in the lock.
She listened to the sounds in Sherry's room, waiting as long as she could before walking down the hall. Paul had come back. Maybe Sherry was home, too. (It had been so silent and frightening to be in the house without them!)
Paul was alone, packing what was left of Sherry's belongings. They weren't coming back.
Nadine watched him from the doorway. It was a long time before she spoke. "I wish there was something I could say, Paul."
He didn't answer. But his uncoordinated movements gave him away; he'd been drinking.
"I know what this has done to you, having to face people at the agency-around the neighborhood."
Paul dropped a pair of soiled tennis shoes into an open suitcase crammed with Sherry's lingerie.
"I can't tell you how sorry I am, Paul. After it's ... all forgotten and you come back, I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to both of you."
Silence. Sherry's room was still. Utter, desolate, silence.
"I will! And you'll forgive Warren ... everything's going to be all right with the account. You know Mabel! You know how much she thinks of you. And you'll be busy ... thinking up a new campaign...."
Her voice rising, rising and soaring out of control....
"Talk to me, Paul! It wasn't all true ... you know the way newspapers twist and distort everything!"
Then, remembering that the morning paper had said nothing about her ... had only reprinted portions of her letters to Monty: "I know how you feel, Paul! I don't blame you...."
He slammed the suitcase shut, fastening the locks.
"Paul, I couldn't stand it here alone! You know what it'll be like for me! Don't you remember anything? How wonderful it used to be? It could be that way again...!"
Paul ignored her, tight-lipped and silent. "If you leave me, I'll ... kill myself. I will, Paul. Don't say I didn't warn you! I'll kill myself!"
He had finished gathering up Sherry's most necessary possessions. A suitcase in each hand, Paul stumbled past her down the hall.
"Is that what you want me to do? All right ... all right, you'll have your way! Tomorrow morning I'll be dead and you'll wish you hadn't!"
She followed him into the living room. A cab waited in the driveway; diffused beams from the headlights traced wide, white circles on the draperies.
Child-like tears now. He would stop, he would send the cab away, he would see how desperately she loved and needed him!
"Paul, it's been eighteen years! We've been happy together for eighteen'years! If I'm willing to try ... if I promise to try ... think of Sherry ... think how ... divorces always made you sick ... you said anything was worth forgetting if it meant holding a family together...."
Not until then did Paul break his leaden quiet. He set down the suitcases and opened the door.
"Always wanted you, Mommy," he said softly. "It's just ... I've discovered the only way you're ever going to want me."
"Don't go! Paul, don't ... please! Please ... oh, please ... I"
She was screaming it when the door closed behind him.
Untheatrical screams, bone-fide tears, emanating from Nadine. Nadine, a person! Nadine, a living, breathing, one-hundred-percent genuine human being who knew what it meant to scream and to cry and to hurt. Someone foreign and unknown until now. Nadine, whom no one had ever really known. And least of all, Nadine.