Deep Water Patricia Highsmith (elon musk reading list .txt) 📖

leave—if you please. The law says all persons concerned must be present to the end of the inquest." He smiled and bowed her back to her seat.

       Horace had made no move to stop her. He looked as if he would have been glad to leave himself.

       The coroner turned back to Melinda. "You said your husband didn't like Mr. De Lisle because you liked him. Were you perhaps in love with Mr. De Lisle?"

       "No, but I was very fond of him."

       "And do you think your husband was jealous of Mr. De Lisle?"

       "Yes."

       Coroner Walsh turned to Vic. "Were you jealous of Mr. De Lisle?"

       "No, I was not," Vic said.

       Coroner Walsh turned to the Cowans and the Mellers and asked in a patiently reasoning tone, "Did any of you ever notice Anything in Mr. Van Allen's conduct that would lead you to believe that he was jealous of Mr. De Lisle?"

       "No," said Phil and Horace, practically in unison.

       "No," Evelyn said.

       "Certainly not," from Mary.

       "How many years have you known Mr. Van Allen, Mr. Cowan?"

       Phil looked at Evelyn. "About eight years?"

       "Nine or ten," Evelyn said. "We met the Van Aliens as soon as they moved here."

       "I see. And Mr. Meller?"

       "I think it's ten years," Horace said firmly.

       "Then you know him well, you consider?"

       "Very well," said Horace.

       "You would both vouch for his character?"

       "Absolutely," Phil put in before Horace could speak. "And so would anybody else who knows him."

       "I consider him my finest friend," Horace said.

       The coroner nodded, then looked at Melinda as if he might be going to ask her a question or ask a question about her, but Vic could see that he didn't want to prolong it; and didn't want to probe any further into Melinda's relationship to De Lisle either. There was a friendly warmth in the coroner's eyes as he looked at Vic. "Mr. Van Allen, I believe you're the owner of the Greenspur Press in Little Wesley, aren't you?"

       "Yes," Vic said.

       "A very fine press. I've heard of it," he said, smiling, as if it were a foregone conclusion that every literate person in that section of Massachusetts had heard of the Greenspur Press. "Have you anything more to add, Mrs. Van Allen?"

       "I've told you what I 'think," Melinda' said, spitting out the last word in her old style.

       "Since this is a court of law, we must have evidence," the coroner said, with a slight smile. "Unless anyone has evidence to offer that this death was not due to accidental circumstances, I hereby declare this inquest closed." He waited. Nobody spoke. "I declare this inquest closed with a verdict of death due to accidental circumstances." He smiled. "Thank you all for appearing here. Good afternoon."

       Phil got up and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. Melinda walked to the door, holding a paper tissue to her nose. Down on the sidewalk, Dr. Franklin took his leave first, saying a solemn "Good afternoon" to all of them, hesitating a moment as he looked at Melinda, as if he were about to add something, but he said only "Good afternoon, Mrs. Van Allen," and walked away to his car.

       Melinda stood beside the car, still with the tissue to her nose, like a bereaved widow.

       "Keep your chin up, Vic," Phil said, patting his shoulder, and then he turned to go to his car as if to stop himself from saying more.

       Evelyn Cowan laid her hand on Vic's sleeve. "I'm sorry, Vic. Call us soon, will you? Tonight, if you want to. Bye-bye, Melinda!" Vic saw that Mary wanted to say something to Melinda and that Horace was trying to discourage her from it. Then Horace came over to Vic, smiling, his narrow head lifted as if to impart courage to Vic by his own attitude, to show by his smile that Vic was still his friend, his best friend.

       "I'm sure she's not going to keep on like this, Vic," Horace said in a low tone, just out of Melinda's hearing. "So don't let it throw you. We'll all stand by you—always."

       "Thanks, Horace," Vic said. Behind Horace he saw Mary's thin, sensitive lips working as she looked at Melinda. Then, as Horace took his wife's arm, she smiled at Vic and blew him a kiss as she walked away.

       Vic held the car door open for Melinda and she got in. Then Vic got in behind the wheel. It was his car, his antiquated Oldsmobile. Vic circled the main square—a necessity because of the traffic regulations—then took the southbound street that led into the highway to Little Wesley.

       "I'm not going to come around," Melinda said, “so don't think I am."

       Vic sighed. "Honey, you can't go on weeping for somebody you hardly knew."

       "'You killed him!'" Melinda said vehemently. "The Mellers and the Cowans don't know you as well as I, do they?"

       Vic made no reply. What she said did not alarm him in the least—and he had felt no alarm during the inquest either, even at the question about the red marks on Charley's skin—but he was aware of a sense of annoyance with Melinda now, a sense of shame that was in itself reassuring because of its familiarity. Everybody knew why Melinda had accused him, why she had shed tears at the inquest, why she had grown hysterical at the Cowans' the night it had happened. The Cowans knew what her relationship with De Lisle had been. De Lisle had been just another sneaking paramour, but one who had happened to die right in their home. The Cowans and the Mellers must know, too, that he had had years of such scenes, years of tears over broken dates with cads and scoundrels, more tears when they went away, and that he had gone through it all uncomplaining, patient, behaving always as if nothing at all were happening—just as he had behaved