The Kill-Off Read Free

your caretaker, into getting him to marry you—”
    “I did not! I—I—”
    “The hell you didn’t! The old man was ignorant; he thought he was doing the right thing by his son. Setting him up so that he could get a good education and amount to something. But how did it turn out? Why—”
    “I gave Ralph a good home! Every advantage! It’s not my fault that—”
    “You didn’t give him anything,” I said. “Ralph worked for everything he got, and he helped support you besides. And he’s still working anywhere from ten to twenty-four hours a day. Oh, sure, you’ve tossed the dough around. You’ve thrown away the whole damned estate. But Ralph never got any of it. It all went for Luane Devore, and to hell with Ralph.”
    She cried some more. Then she pouted. Then she pulled the injured dignity stunt. She believed, she said, that Ralph was quite satisfied with the way she had treated him. He’d married her because he loved her. He hadn’t wanted to go away to school. He was never happier than when he was working. Under the circumstances, then…
    Her voice trailed away, a look of foolish embarrassment spreading over her flabby, talcum-caked face. I nodded slowly.
    “That just about wraps it up, doesn’t it, Luane? You’ve said it all yourself.”
    “Well…” She hesitated. “Perhaps I do worry, brood too much. But—”
    “Let’s pin it down tight. Wrap it up once and for all. Just what reason would Ralph have to kill you? This place—all that’s left of the estate? Huh-uh. He has it now, practically speaking. He’ll have it legally when you die. After all the years he’s slaved here, worked to improve it, you couldn’t will it to someone else. You could, of course, but it wouldn’t hold up in court. I—Yeah?”
    “I—nothing.” She hesitated again. “I’m pretty sure she couldn’t be the reason. After all, he’s only known her a couple of days.”
    “Who?” I said.
    “A girl at the dance pavilion. The vocalist with the band this year. I’d heard that Ralph was driving her around a lot, but, of course—”
    “So who doesn’t he drive around when he gets a chance?” I said. “It’s a way of picking up a few bucks.”
    She nodded that that was so. She agreed that most of Ralph’s haul-and-carry customers were women, since women were less inclined to walk than men.
    “Anyway,” she added thoughtfully, “if it was just another woman—well, that couldn’t be the reason, could it? He could just run away with her. He could get a divorce. He wouldn’t have to—to—”
    “Of course, he wouldn’t,” I said. “And he doesn’t want to, and he doesn’t intend to. Where did you ever get the notion that he did, anyhow? Has he said anything, done anything, out of the way?”
    She shook her head. She’d thought he’d been behaving rather oddly, and then she’d heard this gossip about the girl. And then she’d been feeling so poorly lately, sick to her stomach and unable to sleep nights, and—
    The telephone rang. She broke off the recital of her various ailments, and snatched it up. She didn’t talk long—not as long as she obviously wanted to. And what she did say was phrased obliquely. Still, with what I’d already heard in town, I was able to get the drift of the conversation.
    She hung up the receiver. Keeping her eyes averted from mine, she thanked me for coming to see her. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, Kossy. I get so worried, you know, and then I get excited—”
    “But you’re all squared away now?” I said. “You know now that Ralph has no intention of killing you, that he never did have and never will have?”
    “Yes, Kossy. And I can’t tell you how much I—”
    “Don’t try,” I said. “Don’t tell me anything. Don’t call me again. Because I’m not representing you any longer. You’ve gone too damned far this time.”
    “Why—why, Kossy.” Her hand went to her mouth. “You’re not angry with me j-just because…”
    “I’m