Suspicion of Deceit Read Online Free PDF

Arthur Halliwell. Arthur's dad was a business partner of my father, in fact, and he shot himself over some scandal with a secretary, but that's another story."
    As if someone might be listening, Irene came closer and put a hand on Gail's arm. "Anyway, Lloyd wanted Rebecca, and he went after her. He called her on the phone, sent her flowers—Well, Arthur threatened to cause a big stink. The story is, Lloyd went by Arthur's office to talk about it. No fights, no shouting. Lloyd came out, and within a week Arthur resigned from the bank, signed the divorce papers, and retired to Palm Springs. Rebecca never heard from him again."
    "My God."
    "You're not to breathe a word of this," Irene said.
    When she was a girl Gail had overheard the women of her mother's bridge club talking while they played cards. They met at Irene Strickland Connor's house one Saturday, then the next week somewhere else, and so on. They would sit at three or four tables on the back terrace if the weather was good, and Gail could hear them from her bedroom window. They would have sandwiches and salad and get up from time to time to freshen their drinks, and the cards—and the stories—would go around and around.
    One diamond. Why doesn't she throw him out, is what I want to know . . . One heart. She can't. She's expecting again. . . . Oh, my God. One spade. . . . She must have done it on purpose. . . . Two clubs . . . Two spades. And why should she just let him go, after what he's put her through? . . . Pass . . . What do you mean, pass? . . . Oops, I mean three spades. . . . He'll leave her, you watch. A man like that never changes—
    Even as young as she was then, Gail could see the conflicts in the stories, how one version often contradicted another. There never seemed to be a resolution, only another chapter, another interpretation. Gail had propped her chin on the windowsill, listening, trying to make sense of it. She had finally come to the conclusion that these women just liked to talk. They were like the birds that fluttered out past the screen, twittering because it was their nature.
    She might have continued to hold that view if she had not seen more twittering in the courtroom. Lawyers, witnesses, judges, all sure they had the real story. All going at it, wham wham wham. Power takes the prize. Gail had to hand it to the women of the Saturday bridge club—they were more willing to have their stories shaped, modified, or even discarded. Add to it, subtract, turn it over, look at it a new way. Around and around. The truth somewhere in the middle, spinning a foot or two above the table, only glimpsed, rarely fixed.
    Irene denied that this was gossip. No, these were actual events happening to people she knew and cared for. They told stories not to gloat but to understand, and Irene had always said you never know a person until you know his past.
    "Tell me more about Rebecca. Where is she from?"
    "Her people are from Atlanta. You can hear it sometimes in her voice. Her father was in construction, but he died young. Betty Ott—you know Betty— was friends with Rebecca's mother through the Theater Guild, before she passed away. This is going back several years, now. Betty told me that Rebecca was one of those girls who knew everything, and she caused her mother no end of trouble. But she had brains. Rebecca was admitted to medical school, and she started classes, but all of a sudden she dropped out. Rebecca's mother told everyone, Oh, she changed her mind. But Betty remembers Rebecca sitting on the back porch alone. Just sitting there. If she had a book, it would be closed on her lap. This went on for weeks and weeks. It had to have been some kind of breakdown. Something terrible happened. A tragic love affair. Maybe she had to end a pregnancy. That's what Betty thinks. Of course Rebecca won't talk about it, and Betty would never pry. So after this thing happened, whatever it was, and she left medical school, and had her