of voice, in his house, his car, his bed. Day by day these images grew sturdier. He had only to see his wife shake hands with a man and he was possessed by the will to destroy her.
There had come into his mind, nourished as it was by ghoulish newspaper photographs, the thought of a double death. He saw as through a lens the two bodies on a disarranged bed. Impossible. Every man’s strength has limits. His ended with the vision of damage to the beloved body. He wanted only to make certain that she would never know fulfillment in another man’s arms. With such assurance could he die peacefully.
Out of nightmare and brooding, out of newspaper sensations, out of the contrivance of detective stories, he made a plan of devilish ingenuity. He would commit suicide so that his death should seem the result of murder. The plot was devious and irresistible. A wealth of devices sprang to mind. With the zest and care he had once given to big business deals, Fletcher Strode planned his death. Schemes were shaped and reshaped, details altered. His mind became a theater in which the drama was endlessly rehearsed. The perfect murder: revenge and self-destruction. Evidence would be circumstantial but convincing. He did not want Elaine to be executed as his murderess; he convinced himself that her charm would save her this fate. He preferred to foresee her future in a woman’s jail where her beauty would fade, her sparkle dim, where she would grow old and stale before, if ever again, she lay with a man.
At times he weakened, rejected the whole idea, enjoying freedom from obsession until some incident . . . another man’s delight in Elaine’s grace . . . would spark the scheme to life again. With exquisite cunning Fletcher worked out tricks and ruses that would seem part of her plot to kill him. Into his diary went paragraphs of suspicion, phrases of fear, suggestions of the ways a woman would kill, nuggets of information gathered from newspaper reports and crime fiction. Begun as a means, the diary became an end, Fletcher Strode’s work of art, obsession and legacy:
One who looks for opportunity finds it everywhere. The smallest weapon, something right under your hand, could be a weapon. When I see her with a kitchen knife in her hand or turning on the gas heater at night I wonder. It would be easy for her to say that a man in my physical and mental state would take his own life. I see this in those dreamy eyes when she does not know I am watching her. When she is shocked out of one of those dreams she shivers and shakes at seeing me close to her and hearing the hell . . .
The entry was unfinished. Fletcher could not write down words that described the hellish horror of his voice.
“I WANT YOU TO DIE? WHERE DID YOU EVER GET AN idea like that? It’s weird. Sinful.” But Elaine had to turn away to hide the burning shame of her face. Over her shoulder she continued to scold, “As for my dreaming of freedom”—she turned toward him again, her face faintly pink—“why should I? Freedom from what? As if this place weren’t so devastatingly beautiful and I”—she paused to stretch her long body on the long chair and give attention to a family of quail going through their ritual movements on the grass—“weren’t in love with you.”
The garden was alive with the scents and sounds of early spring. Freesia and narcissus sent out strong perfumes, the grass glittered with dampness left by morning fog, bees and hummingbirds pondered the rich choice of blossoms. Elaine closed her eyes to recall the past and Fletcher when she had first known him, a man totally committed to life.
“I don’t deny that I said that freedom’s the most wonderful thing for a girl, by why did I say it? You’ve got to consider the circumstances. When your best friend weeps over long distance after getting her divorce, you’ve got to think of some way to console her. Freedom’s great for Joyce, but Fletch, really!” Since he had lost his vocal authority Elaine had tried to control her own speech so that he would not know the passion of her pity. “Darling, please don’t take everything so personally.”
Fletcher turned to study the rosy countenance. They were in the small trellised pavilion that had been added as a conceit by a previous owner of the property. Their garden was out of all proportion to its neighbors’, just as the Mexican ranch house was too mellow and simple for the district. All around them, the trees had been cut down, gardens cut up into building lots upon which stood pretentious, sterile houses surrounded by cactus and broad-leafed tropical plants set into patches of colored stone.
“I’m so happy here, honestly, I dote on the place. And the garden’s getting better every day, don’t you think? Next winter I’m going to plant more azaleas, huge, expensive plants, Fletch, under the pines. Pinks and deep rose color, don’t you think it’ll be beautiful? And so amusing to work out.”
The quail continued their odd dance, Elaine dreamed of costly shrubs, a plane buzzed overhead, and Fletcher smiled at her enthusiasm. The movement of indulgence was not to last. A truck had entered the driveway and stopped at the kitchen door. “Oh, heavens, I’ve forgotten!” and Elaine ran, long legged and supple, toward the house where the milkman waited.
Fletcher, following less frantically, came upon them as Elaine with a devastating smile told the fellow, apologetically, “Of course it’s not your fault, but I do think at the prices they charge, your company could deliver fresher eggs.”
“I’ll take it up with the board of directors.”
Elaine laughed immoderately, her husband thought. The milkman was young and blithe. With all of these sturdy tradesmen she made a ceremony of selection, asked questions about each item, discussed family habits. “I ought to take that disgusting non-fat, but we hate it. My husband, especially, and he’s the one who can’t afford to put on another ounce.”
His weight, thought Fletcher, was not the business of the youth who stared flagrantly at Elaine’s long legs in cream-tan trousers, at hips and breasts whose curves were not entirely concealed by the loose overblouse. As always when she passed the time with a man, Fletcher was plagued by unendurable visions.
Later that day he went shopping with her. At the supermarket he suffered fiercely, pushing the cart in her wake as she exchanged greetings with clerks, selected washing powder and stood reflective before counters of fruit. “Do you think this melon is ripe, Fletch? I have no talent at all for melon-pinching.” She darted after the fruit clerk, addressed him a look so engaging that the fellow must consider himself infallible in judging melons. At the check-out counter a boy greeted her like a long-lost love. Fletcher stood behind the odious cart while the cocky kid held her in discussion of the weather. At once Fletcher saw her, lively and unclothed, in the boy’s arms. The vision, more real than the labels of Marvel-Bleach or Vigor for Stubborn Stains, remained while her packages were checked; changed its male protagonist when a muscular package boy ran to offer service. Sweating, but with self-control, Fletcher allowed the boy to push the cart to the parking lot and load their bags into the car. Elaine offered thanks as though the kid had won an Olympic medal, turned back to wave as Fletcher drove out of the lot.
In the convertible silvercloud Lincoln Continental, Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher Strode made a picture as handsome as a color advertisement, the man big and rugged, deeply tanned, the young woman sleek and lovely, her dark hair careless in the wind. She chatted about the dinner menu, about the absurdity of her pleasure in a ripe honeydew, her indignation at the tastelessness of California tomatoes. Earlier these ardors would have been roused by the works of Chagall, Bernstein, and Balenciaga.
Fletcher sighed.
“You’re bored,” Elaine sighed, immediately regretted the word, asked hastily, “Why don’t we play golf this afternoon?” As though she liked the game! If she had been as companionable as she pretended, she would have learned to play; but no, she refused to yield body or mind to the tyranny of athletic form. “I’d rather watch you.” She rode around with him in the caddy cart, called
