The Chill Read Online Free

stealing my lines. “Could I please talk to Mr. Begley alone?”
    “He has no secrets from me.” She looked up at him proudly, with a wilted edge of anxiety on her pride. “Have you, darling? We’re going to be married, aren’t we, darling?”
    “Could you stop calling me darling? Just for five minutes? Please?”
    She backed away from him, ready to cry, her downturned red mouth making a lugubrious clown face.
    “Please go inside,” he said. “Let me talk to the man.”
    “This is my place. I have a right to know what goes on in my own place.”
    “Sure you do, Madge. But I have squatter’s privileges, at least. Go in and drink some coffee.”
    “Are you in trouble?”
    “No. Of course I’m not.” But there was resignation in his voice. “Beat it, eh, like a good girl?”
    His last word seemed to mollify her. Dawdling and turning, she disappeared down the hallway. Begley closed the door and leaned on it.
    “Now you call tell me the truth,” I said.
    “All right, so I went to see her at the hotel. It was a stupid impulse. It doesn’t make me a murderer.”
    “Nobody suggested that, except you.”
    “I thought I’d save you the trouble.” He spread out his arms as if for instant crucifixion. “You’re the local law, I gather.”
    “I’m working with them,” I said hopefully. “My name is Archer. You haven’t explained why you went to see Mrs. Kincaid. How well did you know her?”
    “I didn’t know her at all.” He dropped his outspread arms in emphasis. The sensitive areas around his mouth were hidden by his beard, and I couldn’t tell what he was doing with them. His gray eyes were unrevealing. “I thought I knew her, but I didn’t.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I thought she might be my daughter. There was quite a resemblance to her in the newspaper picture, but not so muchin the flesh. The mistake on my part was natural. I haven’t seen my daughter for so long.”
    “What’s your daughter’s name?”
    He hesitated. “Mary. Mary Begley. We haven’t been in touch for over ten years. I’ve been out of the country, on the other side of the world.” He made it sound as remote as the far side of the moon.
    “Your daughter must have been quite young when you left.”
    “Yeah. Ten or eleven.”
    “And you must have been quite fond of her,” I said, “to order a picture just because it reminded you of her.”
    “I was fond of her.”
    “Why didn’t you go back for the picture then?”
    He went into a long silence. I became aware of something impressive in the man, the untouchable still quality of an aging animal.
    “I was afraid that Madge would be jealous,” he said. “I happen to be living on Madge.”
    I suspected he was using the bald statement to tell a lie. But it may have come from a deeper source. Some men spend their lives looking for ways to punish themselves for having been born, and Begley had some of the stigmata of the trouble-prone. He said:
    “What do you think happened to Mrs. Kincaid?” His question was cold and formal, disclaiming all interest in the answer to it.
    “I was hoping you’d have some ideas on the subject. She’s been missing for nearly three weeks. I don’t like it. It’s true that girls are always disappearing, but not on their honeymoons —not when they love their husbands.”
    “She loves hers, does she?”
    “He thinks so. How was she feeling when you saw her? Was she depressed?”
    “I wouldn’t say that. She was surprised to see me.”
    “Because she hadn’t seen you for so long?”
    He sneered at me hairily. “Don’t bother trying to trap me, I told you she wasn’t my daughter. She didn’t know me from Adam.”
    “What did you find to talk about with her?”
    “We didn’t talk.” He paused. “Maybe I asked her a few questions.”
    “Such as?”
    “Who her father was. Who her mother was. Where she came from. She said she came from Los Angeles. Her maiden name was Dolly something—I forget the name. Her parents