THE WAITING GAME
by Pat Stadley

A Short Story from Alfred Hichock's
Happiness is a Warm Corpse
Dell Publishing Co.,  N.Y., N.Y.
Copyright © 1969

eBook scanned & proofed by Binwiped 10-26-02

the box of candy came at ten-thirty in the morning. I opened the door when I saw the delivery boy, and signed for the package. It was small and brown and it rattled like chocolates and so I said, "Must be candy for my sister. She gets it and I eat it." And then I smiled at him because he had a pleasant-looking face and I always find it easier to smile at the pleasant ones.
There wasn't a mark anywhere on the box, though I looked carefully and then I called Charleen. She drifted in from the pool, Thad trailing after her, and I handed her a towel, along with the candy because, otherwise, she'd stand there, dripping on the Oriental.
You see, Charleen is the last of my five sisters—the other four having conveniently died without too much fuss—a fall from a mountain top for Darken, a boating accident for Marleen, a bolting horse for Caroleen, and a hunting mishap for Noraleen.
It was really like Father had said. "All my daughters are such simple little kittens, except for two—you, Sherraleen and Charleen. Charleen is a full-grown cat and the clever one, while—well, you're the odd one."
"Oh, but I'm not," I said, "I'm really much more clever than Charleen."
But he only laughed at me and I never did convince him. When he died he left each of us a tidy sum of money, and remembering his words, I sat back and watched. And Charleen was clever and maybe I was odd, but after all who wants just a tidy sum when it can so easily be a tidy fortune?
"Here's more candy," I said, casually, "still no name. And dry your feet."
Charleen took the box eagerly, her slim fingers tearing off the paper. "Isn't it exciting," she said to Thad, "someone keeps sending me the candy—this is the third box—and he never puts his name on it."
Thad scowled. He always scowls when Charleen mentions another man. I'd think he was a fortune hunter except that his father owns fifty oil wells.
"How do you know it's a he?" he asked.
Charleen arched her eyebrows at him and wiggled her hips. She does a very effective job. It's the only course she completed in four years of finishing school.
"Well, pass the candy around," I said.
She gave me a sharp little look from under her long, golden lashes and pouted. "You ate all of the last box!" she accused. "Besides, with your weight problem, you shouldn't eat candy, as if I had to tell you that."
"And that's why," I explained to Detective Barrows, when the doctor called him late that night, "I never even sampled a piece."
"Good thing," he said, "that candy was loaded with enough arsenic to have wiped out half the town."
"She's going to be all right?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said shortly. "A stomach pump's pretty thorough."
I let him prowl the house, poking his nose here and there, and even gave him the wrapping paper from off the candy box.
He stood there reading it and then he looked at me. His face wasn't at all pleasant. "Well, it was addressed to her, definitely, so they didn't mean it for you."
"It must have been a practical joker," I said. "Everyone loves Charleen!"
"Well, evidently someone has stopped," he answered and he went out the door without even a good-bye.
It was a week later when the power steering went out on Charleen's new, bright red convertible. Our house sits high on a hill and the driveway curves down between a long row of tall palm trees that our great-grandfather planted. Charleen always drives like she's handling a jet and even at night she usually hits fifty halfway down the hill. There's a gentle curve right there and this is where the tie-rod snapped.
But Charleen has excellent reflexes. Seconds before she hit the tree, she'd rolled herself in her fur coat and when the engine went through the firewall, she was curled up on the seat in a tight ball.
Detective Barrows all but moved in with us then. I'd never seen such a persistent worker. He dug up the men in Charleen's love Life, and lined them up like wooden soldiers.
I think Thad was horrified to find he was number 33. I consoled him as much as possible, but he hung around Charleen with his wounded heart showing like a red badge.
Charleen was bored. Nothing tires her so much as an old love affair. As for the two attempts on her life, well, it was like she said, smiling up at Detective Barrows, "I've got seven lives left, you know," and she laughed in that intimate lower-tone register. I could see Barrows going down for the count.
Charleen had never had a policeman in love with her before, and it fascinated her. But it made me nervous, because he never quite forgot he was a policeman, and I'd find him prowling the library and reading letters and sniffing through the kitchen canisters. I finally took my diary and burned it, and when I found him poking through the ashes, I laughed right out loud.
He went away at last, officially that is, but he was still around romantically—number 34 on Charleen's list.
But I will say this for Thad. He never gave up and he did have fifty oil wells.
We gave a big party the last weekend in August. We invited everyone we could think of, knowing they'd bring just as many more. Charleen always leaves the details to me while she plays hostess. She really scintillated that evening, and while I made sure the ice buckets were filled with champagne and the tables laden with food, she floated from group to group, her passage noted by everyone in the room.
It was during this time that she drank the glass filled with a martini loaded with strychnine. And if Detective Barrows hadn't been glued to her side from the beginning, she would have gone out on her third life.
But he had an inhalator squad waiting down the hill, and they were there in two minutes.
"Third time's a charm," I said to Barrows, "you'd better work faster."
He only looked at me.
The fourth and fifth times, nobody was sure. A car swerved at her when she was crossing a street. It missed and Barrows said the driver was probably drunk, and then, Arroge, her horse, threw her when he shied at something white in the bushes.
It was October when Thad cooked up the hunting trip. There were five couples, not that I was with anyone particularly, but since both Thad and Barrows were escorting Charleen, I kept it even.
Hunting is one sport I really like. Father taught me how to center five shots, each touching the other. He worked with Charleen, too, but she invariably missed with the first shot.
We drove out to the camp in different cars. I was last because I was bringing out the food, and when I got there, only Thad was waiting. He was sitting on a stump looking very glum.
"They're up on the north shore," he said when he saw me. "We're supposed to play dog." And then he got up and tramped off.
I'm used to playing dog on a deer hunt, so I took up my rifle and started out. It was very hot and when I passed the station wagon I saw Charleen's light blue jacket hanging on the door, so I took off my own heavy suede and picked up hers.
I was working my way up toward the north shore, taking an old familiar back trail, watching for a deer run, when the first shot went over my head. But not very far over. I heard it sing as it passed. I fell flat, rolled in the weeds, one movement ahead of the second shot and then found a log and, behind it, water. I swam a long way on the bottom until I saw weeds and then I came up just far enough to breathe air.
I lay hidden until I heard voices calling along the trail and I could come out. Everybody stood staring at me while I wrung the water out of my clothes. I must have looked awful, because Barrows was acting very disturbed. Charleen began laughing.
"It's not so funny," I said and pointed to the hole in her blue jacket, "because there went your sixth life."
She stopped laughing then, and put a hand out toward Barrows, but Thad took it and scowled at me.
As for Barrows, he had a funny light in his eyes and he was just like a policeman again, prowling around the weeds and sighting along the deer run until I told him I was cold and he could look for clues by himself. He took me home then.
I waited for Charleen, and when Thad brought her home, I shooed him out and then I said to her:
"Well, you really pulled a boner this time."
"Whatever do you mean?" she said and her blue eyes widened.
"Oh, your scheme was clever enough. And if you had killed me, everyone would have thought it was a case of mistaken identity. Only you missed, and now you've crossed me off Barrow's list as number one suspect, and much as he hates to admit it, that only leaves you."
She frowned a little.
"Of course," I said slowly. "I could tell Barrows about the little mishaps to all the others."
She pouted a bit and then she shrugged her shoulders. "Well?" she said.
"It's really quite simple. Just forget your half of Father's money and Barrows will get no help from me."
She didn't like it at all, but there wasn't much else she could do. And then, just as I knew she would, she married Thad and all those oil wells.
As for me, I'm just sitting back and waiting, because with Charleen's flair—well, she'll make a lovely and wealthy widow. And after all, I am her only closest living relative.
Odd, did you say? Not a bit. Don't all things come to those who wait?

-end-