A Stir of Echoes

"LIZ, WHAT ARE YOU-" ANNE GOT NO FARTHER. She stared blankly at the pistol. I stood without a word looking at Elizabeth's pale, tension-sick face. For all my talk, I thought; for all my celebrated awareness, I was as astounded by this as if I'd never sensed a thing.



"Liz, what is this?" Anne said.



Elizabeth's eyes were terrible to look at.



"You," I said, incredulously, "you?"



"Don't you talk to me like that,' Elizabeth said; and I twitched as her finger started to tense on the trigger.



"Elizabeth?" Anne didn't understand. It was obvious by the confused, distraught sound in her voice.



"You had to meddle, didn't you?" Elizabeth said to me. "Had to meddle."



"Elizabeth," I said, "put... put that gun away."



"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she said. "You'd like it if the police had taken it away from me. But they didn't-because Frank said it was an accident. Wasn't that nice of him?" All the contempt and hatred she'd been repressing for months seemed to edge her voice.



"What is this?" Anne demanded to know.



"May I sit down?" I asked Elizabeth.



"May you sit down," she echoed scornfully. "What's the difference what you do?" I sat down slowly so the movement wouldn't startle her. I put my hand over Anne's.



"Liz?" asked my wife.



"Don't you make a pretty picture," said Elizabeth, ignoring her. "A pretty picture." It started as scorn but ended in almost a sob.



"Elizabeth, put that gun-"



"Shut up!" A tear sped down her cheek but she didn't seem to notice it. "I don't want to hear anything from you."



"Elizabeth, what is it?" Anne asked, still not knowing.



"Elizabeth is the-" I started to tell Anne.



"Stop whispering!" Elizabeth ordered.



"Liz, you'll wake up-" Anne broke off as, with a bolt of panic, I squeezed her hand sharply.



"-Richard?" finished Elizabeth, her eyes glittering. "Your baby?" I heard Anne gasp in a breath of air. "What...?" she murmured.



"Tell us about it, Liz," I said, quickly. "If we can help we'll-"



"Help- " Her laugh was a sick, convulsive sound. "You're going to help me? You're going to give me back my baby? You are?"



I swallowed dryly. "No, Elizabeth," I said, "but we can help you with the police." She sat up straight in the chair, the skin tightening across her bloodless cheeks.



"You'll never see the police," she said. "You'll never see anyone. You're a meddler. A damn meddler. I heard you when the Sentas' were here. I heard. I was outside on the porch. I heard. Damn meddler-!" Her voice broke again and she drew in a rasping breath to hold back the sob.



"Elizabeth..." Only a faint sound from my wife.



"You'd like to know how I killed her, wouldn't you?" said Elizabeth. "How I killed that- bitch!" The word coming from her lips sounded hideous.



"That's what she was," she said. "She didn't care. No, she didn't care. It was al-always open season on men for her. Always. Any man. Any one. Even husbands, any husband." I heard Anne sob slightly. Good old Frank, I thought, good old, good old Frank.



"It wasn't-wasn't enough she was stealing her own s-sister's husband," Elizabeth said. "No, n-no, that wasn't enough." The gun wavered in her hand. "She had to branch out, had to get some other husbands too. Any one, any one would do. So long as they'd- get in her filthy bed with her." Elizabeth spoke the last words through clenched teeth, her body trembling with mindless fury.



"Liz," I started but she paid no attention.



"I found out," she said, nodding, "I found out. Everybody thinks I'm so-so stupid. Poor old Liz. P-p-poor old Liz. Doesn't know a thing, not a thing. Poor old Liz. Just-just a stupid old-" Another gasped-in sob shook her body.



I started up.



"Sit down!" she shouted fiercely; I shrank back quickly. She glared at me and it was obvious there was not much left in her that was sane. It was little wonder after what she'd been through.



"I found out," she went on, nodding, a terrible, humorless smile on her lips, "I found out. Frank thought I didn't know but I did. That's why he let me have a baby. You didn't know that, did you? I had to bargain for it. I had to make a bargain-"



Suddenly, her free hand clutched across her cheek and one eye. "With my own husband I had to make a bargain so I could have a baby! That's wonderful, isn't that w-w-wonderful?"



"Liz, don't," I muttered. It was sickening to listen to her pitiful voice spilling out all the horrors she'd had to live with.



"Oh, you're going to hear all of it," she said, extending the Luger toward us. I pressed close to Anne, ready to jump in front of her if I had to. "Every single dirty detail of it," she said. She sank back against the chair.



"Frank went out that night, I don't know where. Who cares where he went? Probably out with some girl, with some cheap-" She stopped and shuddered fitfully, lips pressed together, her face the mask of a demented woman.



"I saw Sentas come over here," she said. "His wife was out. So he came- creeping over here." Her voice was a contemptuous whine. "Like a dog who smelled the air and knew there was a bitch around." Little Elizabeth; shy, quiet Elizabeth.



"He wasn't here long," she said. "It didn't take them long. Then he came out. The house was dark so I went over. The door wasn't locked. And I went in.



"She wasn't in the living room. I knew she wouldn't be. There was only one place she'd be, one place her kind would be. Lying on a bed. So I-I-" She seemed breathlessly excited at the memory. "I picked up the poker-that one over there; you didn't know that, did you? And I went in the bedroom." It was deathly still in the room-except for the harsh breathing of Elizabeth Wanamaker, who had wanted only to have a baby and be loved.



"She was still dressed," she said, her voice hard and savage. "She still had her dress on. The black one!" she said to me, smiling for an instant; awfully. "The one you asked me about, remember? With-with the Aztec symbols on it? She hadn't even taken it off." Her voice was a hating whine again. "She'd just pulled it up over her hips. That's all! That's all she needed. Pull it up like a-like a-" She flung a talon of a hand over her eyes again and there was a horrible sob in her chest, racking her.



"Oh, God!" she cried, "Oh, God. I killed her and I'd kill her again! Again and again and again and again and again!" A line of spittle ran across her jaw. She didn't even notice it. She sat there, panting.



The End