Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 40, No. 6, June, 1995

She seemed so distraught I figured I’d give her a few minutes before delivering the bad news. I motioned toward the couch, offering the seat as if we’d been in my home instead of hers. Suzannah peeked around the corner and stared at us forlornly, her long black hair falling down over one eye.

Lucille started to wheeze, and I patted her on the back. Between the excess weight and her serious nicotine habit, this woman was a candidate for the morgue express line. I got her to take a few deep breaths before telling me what the problem was.

“We’re screwed,” she said at last. “We’ve pissed away the best shot we ever had of getting out of here.” She shot a look at the girl, who lingered in the hallway not five feet from my shoulder. “Damn! I swore I’d get him, and he got away.”

“Who got away?” I asked, as if I didn’t know.

“Suzannah’s daddy.”

“Your husband?” Up to then, I’d thought we were talking about Gordon Lively. Now it appeared I’d stumbled into something else.

Suzannah tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and started to cry.

“No, no...” Lucille shook her head in frustration, her breath still coming in labored gasps. “I’m sorry, Suzannah. I know I promised your mom and all, but I did the best I could.”

I looked from one to the other. “What’s going on, Lucille? What do you mean, you promised her mother? I thought you were her mother.”

Lucille grabbed another Kleenex and began blubbering again. Clearly I was going to get nothing else from her. I stood up and walked over to the girl.

Suzannah, at sixteen, was almost half a head taller than Lucille, which put the two of us eye to eye. She was pale and thin, but the way she carried herself was almost regal. When I stepped in front of her, she raised her chin slightly, as if mustering a dignity that came from somewhere outside of that motel room.

I hooked a thumb back in Lucille’s direction. “Does this have anything to do with your little performance today on the radio?”

Her eyes widened, and her lips parted slightly. “How’d you know about that?”

I shook my head. “First, tell me what’s wrong with your mother.”

Suzannah sighed. “She’s not my mother. She’s just a friend of my mom’s.”

I nodded. “Okay, I’ll bite. Where’s your mother?”

“She’s dead.”

Her voice was like thin ice on a frozen pond: slick and hard, with something deadly right under the surface. I thought of my own son, Byron, just a year younger. How much would it take to make him as hard, I wondered. How much to make him so angry? I took a deep breath and glanced back at Lucille.

“I know it’s none of my business, but I’d be willing to listen if you need to talk.”

The girl shrugged. “Nothing much to tell. Mom died last year. Breast cancer. Aunt Lucille was her best friend. Things were okay until she hurt her back in January. Then she went on disability, and we had to move in here.” She looked around quickly. “We don’t like it much.”

I could see why. From the looks of things, the two of them had come about as close to hitting bottom as possible and still have a roof over their heads. I still didn’t see what it had to do with her father, however, so I asked.

“My folks never married; they split when I was really little. Mom and I did just fine on our own. I never missed him.” She took a deep breath and looked at Lucille, who had recovered enough to light up another coffin nail.

“When Mom got sick, she started to worry about money. She decided to sue my dad for support. Not for her, just for me. But my dad told her she’d ruin him if she did that. He said his wife would divorce him and take all his money. So he made her an offer: if she’d sign a piece of paper saying he wasn’t my real father, he’d take care of me after she died.”

Suzannah stopped and pressed a tear out of the corner of her eye.

“Anyway, when she died, I guess he kind of changed his mind. Aunt Lucille adopted me, and now I live with her.”

I looked at Lucille. She seemed mortified.

“I figured it was the only way to get any money out of him,” she said. “So I staged the accident. Wasn’t that hard to do. Keeping this girl quiet, though...” She shook her head angrily. “Bastard didn’t even recognize his own flesh and blood.”

My head was spinning. “You mean Gordon Lively is Suzannah’s father?”

“Yeah.” Lucille frowned. “How’d you know his name?”

I stood in front of my house on Wednesday morning, listening to the trash truck as it made its way down the street. I still didn’t know how I was going to pay my mortgage next month, but Gordon Lively’s check had paid most of my outstanding bills and I still had half a tank of gas.

I had no idea whether anyone connected with the case had heard Suzannah on the radio, but I did know the cassette in my hand was the only physical evidence there was. When I told him what had happened, Carlos “accidentally” destroyed the master tape of the previous day’s show. Now it was up to Lucille and Suzannah. And me.