Free Pursued by Shadows by Medora Sale Page A

understand why you’re so damned interested in Guy Beaumont. I’d have thought he’d be the last person you’d want to talk about,” said Harriet, as she settled into the passenger’s seat and opened a flask of coffee.
    John paused to ease the car back into the traffic stream pouring away from the bridge at Lewiston. “It’s a question of knowing you. I want to find out why you, of all people, got mixed up with someone like Beaumont. And then stuck with him for so long. It didn’t seem like you to put up with treatment like that. I was surprised at it,” he said, mildly.
    â€œBut I didn’t,” said Harriet, stung at the description. “It only happened once, really. Well, twice, sort of.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, sort of?”
    â€œI mean sort of,” said Harriet. “Have some coffee and let me bore you with explanations. Guy was convinced that I was cheating on him, which made sense when I found out about Jane. He figured if he was doing it, so was I. Not a very original mind. So, one night he came home drunk and we had a fight. It ended in him throwing me across the room and kicking me a few times.” Her voice was flat and unemotional. “I was surprised, too,” she added sardonically. “We’d had a fair number of screamers but they hadn’t finished up like that.”
    â€œWhat did you do?” asked Sanders, sounding politely interested.
    â€œI went into the bedroom and started throwing his clothes in his suitcase. Then he went all remorseful—I know, don’t say it,” she added wryly. “That’s what they all do. Anyway, I said any more of that and I’d have the cops on him.”
    â€œBut that wasn’t the end of it.”
    â€œNo, of course not. A couple of weeks later he came home pissed again, tried to clip me on the ear—and missed—and then made a futile attempt to throw me down the stairs. I think he was too drunk to focus on where I was. Anyway, I locked myself in the bedroom and waited until he passed out. Then I packed everything he owned—clothes, paintings, everything—and dumped them on the sidewalk. By God, did I enjoy that. I called his brother to come and get them or I was going to have a bonfire on the lawn. When he arrived, I suggested that he might like to remove Guy as well, before I called the cops. He wasn’t exactly thrilled, but he did drag him off with the rest of the trash. So you see, we’re not talking about years of broken noses and missing teeth. Anyway, a couple of weeks later Jane told me about the baby, the mystery was solved, and they left for Montreal.”
    There was a pause as Sanders negotiated yet another construction site. “What in hell do they live on?” he asked finally.
    â€œLive on?” said Harriet, slightly puzzled. “Oh—I see. You’re assuming the starving artist, free-loading on sweet, generous, softhearted me. Well—the free-loading part is true enough. He’s incredibly cheap. Pathologically cheap, actually. He’s one of those ‘your money is for us to live on and mine is for me to keep’ types who can’t stand laying out cash no matter how much he has. He squirrels away just about every penny he earns.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI have no idea. It has nothing to do with youthful deprivation. His father’s a gynecologist. Makes pots of money. And Guy’s very successful.”
    â€œYou told me he was a lousy artist,” said John, suspiciously.
    â€œThat’s true too. He is a lousy artist. That’s not the same thing, as you should realize, John Sanders. He has no eye. He can’t
see
things,” she said in exasperation. “It’s maddening. But he can do almost anything on a small scale.”
    â€œYou mean miniatures?” asked Sanders incredulously.
    â€œNo, that’s not what I mean, you idiot,” said Harriet and laughed. “I