Someone Is Bleeding Read Online Free PDF Page A

be hidden at first but it was always there. I knew that from school. He’d lead up, lead up, then sock you over the head with his coup de grace.
    “Her family,” I said. “Her life.” I paused for effect. “Her divorce,” I said, as casually as possible, figuring that it was the angle he was working on.
    James Vaughan, late of Missouri farm town, now of California society, raised his eyebrows. Most effectively. All right, let’s have it, Jim, I wanted to say, you can spare the histrionics. I know you.
    “That’s what she told you,” he said. “That she was divorced?”
    “That’s right.”
    A sinking sensation in my stomach. What in hell was he driving at?
    He looked at me, still deliberately. Until the thoughts of what he might be hiding started to make my skin crawl.
    “What is it, for Christ’s sake?” I asked.
    He put one hand into his coat pocket.
    ”I don’t know whether you’ll believe what I tell you,” he said.
    “What?”
    “Peggy isn’t divorced,” he said.
    “She’s still married?”
    “No,” he said, “not now.”
    “What about her husband?” I asked, perfect straight man for horror.
    He hesitated. Then he said, “Murdered.”
    I felt the cold sickness explode in me because I knew his coup de grace before he said it.
    “Peggy murdered him.”

Chapter Two
    I sat there and I felt as if the walls were tottering, ready to fall in on me. Everything out of proportion and coldness in me and him looking down.
    “You’re lying,” I said, weakly, very weakly.
    “Am I?”
    And I couldn’t convince myself that he was.
    “All the facts can be found in newspaper files,” he said, “if you don’t believe me. I have some of the clippings here if you’d like to see them.”
    I thought, I’ll throw him, I’ll ask to see the clippings. Then I was afraid to try. The thought of holding them in my hands, reading them, sickened me. I kept seeing that angelic smile in my mind. That smile. Those eyes, those lustrous, frank eyes. The way she stroked my hair. Her soft lips on mine. The long, happy days together.
    Murder?
    “Don’t you think it would be better if you left?” I heard him saying.
    I want to see Peggy, I thought. I visualized it though. A writer’s curse. I heard myself asking, inanely it seemed, “Peggy, did you murder your husband?”
    “I’ll have Steig take you home,” he said.
    I looked up at him. His face was without expression. Certainly there was no sympathy there.
    “I should see her,” I said.
    But without conviction. I didn’t want to see her. I was afraid to see her. Afraid of seeing her lower her eyes and refuse to answer me. And all I could think of was Peggy lying to me.
    I couldn’t face it. I’m a coward, I guess, in lots of ways.
    “I think it would be foolish to see her,” Jim said.
    I found myself standing. For moments at a time I forgot where I was, even who I was. Just pain standing there, overwhelmed with misery.
    “Listen,” I heard him say, “I know Peggy. For years I thought what you think of her now. That she was simple, uncomplicated.” He shook his head. “She’s not.” he said, walking me to the door.
    I wanted to get away. I was sick.
    “She’s hopelessly erratic,” he said. “If you spoke to her now about it, she might cry. She also might explode in your face and tell you it wasn’t murder, really, and besides, it isn’t any of your business. Her mind shifts from one emotion to another. You must have seen that yourself, David.”
    I don’t know whether I did or not. But the words were in my brain, and, in the state of shock I was in, I took them straight.
    “Peggy is a dangerous girl,” he said.
    David Newton, sheep. Led from the house. Luckily or unluckily, depending how you look at it, I didn’t see Peggy. I think she was in the big room again, dancing with Dennis. Or looking for me. A me that was being led, dazed and shocked, to the big black Cadillac. Slumping back on the cold seat. Vaughan leaning in.
    “If you