Killing the Goose by Frances and Richard Lockridge Page B

would be ugly.
    Pam North groped for a word more accurate. When she found it she hesitated to use it even in her own mind because it was too big a word for people. For ordinary people, anyway. But the word was “evil.” Looking at Cleo Harper, hearing her hitter words continue, Pam thought that there was something evil, and unexpected, in the room. Or that there might be. It was not clear. Possibly, Pam thought, she was now herself a writer of melodrama, inventing motives, imagining mysteries in simple things. Probably Cleo Harper was merely an overwrought, not very effectual, person who had lost a friend and lacked self-control.
    It was easier to think that. More comfortable. Thinking that made the world more comprehensible and, in a way, more tolerable. That, Pam decided, was why people had quit believing in evil. It was too uncomfortable a belief. It was too unseemly. Even now, with something enormous that was surely evil loose in the world, and not yet bound, it was hard to believe in evil on a smaller, more human scale. It was easier and less alarming to think that you were merely making things up.
    People did not believe in big emotions, except, of course, their own emotions, which they always considered big. They—
    â€œPhilosophy,” Pam said to herself, alarmed, deciding to stop it at once.
    â€œHuh?” Mullins said. Cleo Harper merely stopped talking for a moment and looked at Pam through reddened eyes. Pam realized she had done it again.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said. “I must have been thinking out loud. I do, you know. Even when I think I’m not. Like now.”
    â€œWhy philosophy?” Mullins said. “I don’t get it.”
    â€œNeither do I, Mr. Mullins,” Cleo Harper said. “I’m trying to tell you—and she—”
    â€œI’m really sorry,” Pam said. “It was just a thought. I was really listening. You were going to tell us about seeing the Martinelli boy at the cafeteria.”
    Cleo Harper hadn’t been, precisely. She had been telling them what ought to be done with Franklin Martinelli. But she was oddly obedient. She took up a new line of thought without protest and now Pam did listen.
    â€œHe was running,” she said. “His face was all twisted up. And—I just remembered. He had one hand in his pocket, like he was holding something. The knife!”
    Mullins shook his head, chiefly in answer to the question in Mrs. North’s eyes. It couldn’t have been the knife, he said. They had found the knife, on the floor where it had been dropped, apparently, as soon as its work was done. It was a clasp knife with one long blade and a rough handle which was smeared, but not usefully imprinted, by the hand which grasped it.
    â€œA sticker,” Mullins said. “Sort of a Boy Scout knife. Like a kid might have had.”
    â€œHis hand was in his pocket, anyway,” the tall, thin girl insisted. “I thought it was a knife—afterward. He was almost running because he had just killed her and—”
    It was difficult to keep her even remotely objective. Martinelli had, it appeared, gone very rapidly through a revolving door, setting it swirling. Cleo had been indignant and turned to say something to him and recognized him.
    â€œHe looked terrible,” she said. “Like he was crazy. So I didn’t say anything. He turned and ran up the street.”
    â€œRan?” Pam repeated.
    â€œIt was almost running,” the girl said. “Because he was afraid—because of what he’d done. And the knife in his pocket, all bloody.”
    â€œListen,” Mullins said. “He didn’t have the knife. Whoever did it left the knife.”
    â€œI don’t believe it,” the girl said. “You’re trying to pretend he didn’t do it. You’re crooked and he’s paid you something or—”
    â€œJeeze,” Mullins said. “Jeeze, miss.” He