Defense for the Devil Read Free

Gwen, and make it something she’d never forget. She’ll be going to the university in the fall, here in Eugene. I wanted it to be very, very special for her. And Mitch came back.” She closed her eyes hard.
    When Maggie opened her eyes and started speaking again, her voice was even lower. “It was late, after eleven. We’d all been busy, there had been guests in the inn, and one couple was still there, planning to check out the next morning. I was expecting sixty or seventy people. Anyway, I had just put some pies in the oven when he walked in through the kitchen door as if he’d never left. He smelled bad, was road dirty, unshaven, rumpled, as if he had been driving for days without sleep. He came in carrying all his stuff—suitcase, briefcase, a duffel bag, a sport coat over his arm—and just let it all drop inside the door. I told him to get out or I’d call the police. He…” She shrugged. “He came at me and said he’d break my arm if I gave him any lip, and he grabbed my wrist. I hit him with the first thing I could grab, the rolling pin from the worktable.” She shook her head, and a very faint smile appeared and vanished. “What a cliché, hit him with a rolling pin. Anyway, he went down and didn’t make a sound or move, and I thought I had killed him.”
    She drank thirstily then and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I had to get him out of the kitchen. One of the girls might not be asleep yet, come out for water or something. I kept thinking he had come back to spoil Gwen’s party. Crazy. Anyway, I ran out to the shed and got a wagon we use to haul firewood, and got an old beach blanket from the garage. I rolled him up in the blanket and dragged him to the wagon outside the back door, and I took him to the garage and got him inside the house van, wrapped up like a mummy. I locked the van so no one would get inside. I really was crazy, but it was all I could think of. I couldn’t call the sheriff. They’d arrest me… Gwen’s big day ruined, my mother could have a heart attack, more scandal, all those people on the way. They’d come for a party and attend a wake. And my daughters… I was crazy.” She stopped again, longer this time.
    “I hid his gear. I cleaned up the kitchen and took the pies out of the oven, and I remembered he must have left a car somewhere. It was in the drive near the garage. I had to get rid of it before people started to arrive the next day. That day. It was after one by then. All I could think of was to drive the car to a day-use park about two miles away and leave it there. Just before dawn that’s what I did, and I waited in the park until there was enough light to walk home on the beach, where no one would see me.”
    She drank more tea, gazing past Barbara. “I made breakfast for the two customers, we cleaned their room, my housekeeper was there by then…. My parents arrived in time for lunch, and Mama and Papa Arno got there in the afternoon. I had a reservation for an early dinner for all the grandparents, the girls, and myself; by eight or nine, others would be pulling in, and we had to be back by then. There wasn’t any time to do anything about Mitch. Then the Amos decided to let me have a couple of hours with my folks—they said they would visit friends in Folsum—and we left them and went to dinner at about four. Mother wanted a little walk on the beach before dinner, and there’s easy access down in Folsum, so we left early. When we got home Dad wanted to put his car in the garage, so I had to back my car out first, not the van, a little Nissan. I looked in the van to make sure nothing showed, and it was empty. I nearly fell down in relief; I felt as if I had been living a nightmare all day and finally woke up. He had come to and left, that’s all I could think.
    “On Sunday,” Maggie went on, “most of the guests left, but a few stayed over until Monday. We had arranged for me to ride up to Portland with my brother and his wife