The Price of Love and Other Stories Read Free Page B

bullying; it ran much deeper and was more dangerous.
    “Tell me what you did last night, Cornelius,” I said, the words out of my mouth before I realized what a mistake I had made, calling him by his first name. The colonel frowned and Lieutenant Clawsonsmiled in a particularly nasty way. “Pfc. Jubb, that is,” I corrected myself, too late.
    “You know what I did,” said Cornelius.
    The others looked at me, curious. “Humour me,” I said, feeling my mouth become dry.
    “We were celebrating the victory in Sicily,” Cornelius said. “We drank some beer in the Nag’s Head and then we went back to your house and drank some whisky.”
    The colonel looked surprised to hear Cornelius talk, and I guessed he hadn’t heard his voice before. When you were expecting some sort of barely comprehensible rural Louisiana patois, what you got in fact was the more articulate and refined speech of the New Englander, a result of the time Cornelius had spent in the North.
    “Were you drunk?” I asked.
    “Maybe. A little. But not so much that I couldn’t find my way home.”
    “Which way did you go?”
    “The usual way.”
    “Through Brimley Park?”
    Cornelius hesitated and caught my eye. “Yes. It’s a good shortcut.”
    “Did you notice anything there? Anyone?”
    “No,” he said.
    I got that sinking feeling. If I could tell that Cornelius was lying, what must the others be thinking? He certainly wasn’t a natural liar. And why was he lying? I pressed on, and never before had my duty felt so much of a burden to me.
    “Did you hear anything?”
    “No,” said Cornelius.
    “Do you know a girl by the name of Evelyn Fowler?”
    “Can’t say as I do.”
    “About five foot three, good-looking girl. Wears nice clothes, makes a lot of them herself, has a Veronica Lake hairstyle.”
    “Who doesn’t?” said Cornelius.
    It was true; there were plenty of Veronica Lake look-alikes walking around in 1943. “She’s been in the Nag’s Head a couple of times,” I added.
    “I suppose I might have seen her, then. Why?”
    “She was raped and beaten last night in Brimley Park.”
    Now, for the first time, Cornelius really looked me in the eye. “And you think I did it?” he asked.
    I shook my head. “I’m only asking if you saw anything. It was around the time you left. And” – I dropped the grimacing monkey softly on the table – “I found this near the scene.”
    Cornelius looked at the charm, then turned up his sleeve and saw the missing spot on his bracelet. Clawson and the colonel both stared at him gravely, as if they knew they’d got him now and it was just a matter of time. I wasn’t so sure. I thought I knew Cornelius, and the man I knew would no sooner rape and beat Evelyn Fowler than he would sully the memory of his own mother.
    Finally, he shrugged. “Well, I did tell you I walked through the park. It must have dropped off.”
    “But you saw and heard nothing?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Bit of a coincidence, though, isn’t it? The timing and all.”
    “Coincidences happen.”
    “Where did you get that scratch on your cheek?” I asked him.
    He put his hand up to it. “Don’t know. Maybe cut myself shaving.”
    “You didn’t have it last night, when you left my house.”
    He shrugged again. “I shave in the mornings.”
    “It doesn’t look like a shaving cut. Are you sure you didn’t get it when you were attacking Evelyn Fowler?”
    He looked at me with disappointment in his eyes, and shook his head. “You don’t believe that.”
    He was right; I didn’t. “Well, what did happen? Help me here.”
    “I think that’s about enough for now,” said Lieutenant Clawson, getting to his feet and pacing the tiny room. “We’ll take it over from now on.”
    That was what I had been afraid of. At least with me, Cornelius would get a fair deal, but I wasn’t sure how well his fellow countrymen would treat him. I was the one who had brought the trouble down on him, the one who couldn’t