I looked back up at Richard crouched above me, panting. For the first time since I’d known him he appeared to be frightened. It had finally gotten through to him what he’d done, and now he was looking at me beseechingly, as if for guidance.
In the brief time that we stood there it was clearly evident to everyone that something quite awful had happened, and now in that strange glow of burning rags, many of them shuffled silently forward to see. They stopped in a ring about twenty feet from us and stared at the scene.
I imagine I stood up then and looked around at them. Richard dropped behind me, falling back into the shadows. They were all boys, just like the one lying crumpled there on the ground, most of them no more than seventeen or eighteen years old. They’d been drinking. You could see it in the wild flush of their faces. But now they were all suddenly sober and frightened.
“Get but,” I shouted at them at the top of my lungs. “Get the hell out of here.”
I started toward those faces swinging the rifle at them from the barrel end in wide whooshing arcs, looking, I suppose, like a madman. They fell back before me. The ring of them broke open and they started streaming for the cars. Doors slammed. Lights went on. Motors turned over. They were all suddenly scurrying out of the driveway like so many frightened roaches, leaving the burning rags to die in small smouldering heaps all around the grounds.
After they’d gone, there was nothing left but Richard and me confronting each other over that poor smashed form sprawled on the ground, the little gray bubbles oozing from beneath the torn flap in its skull. I reached for the boy’s wrist. It was still warm and it dangled limply while I felt for a pulse. But there was no pulse.
I’ll never forget the expression on Richard’s face. It was an appeal. “Help me!” it said, but he never spoke those words. He kept looking over his shoulder, as if some instinct were telling him to run and he was trying desperately to fight that instinct. His eyes flashed wide, however, and he already had the look of a fugitive.
If he was looking to me for advice, he was wasting his time. Though my mind was numb, it seemed to be going a mile a minute. But I couldn’t put a plausible thought together in his behalf. Birge would be out there momentarily. As soon as those boys hit town or a nearby phone, Birge would know. I knew that’d be what they’d do first, and then Birge would be out to see me, in an official capacity. Not to help me, mind you. And certainly not to help patch together what was left of my house—and certainly not to apprehend the people who’d torn it apart; not even to give solace or comfort in that hour of loss. (The patrol car he’d promised to send had never come, of course.) No. He’d be out there seeking justice for the applecheeked boy whose wrecked body lay crumpled on the ground in the dying light of a few smouldering rags.
But most of all, Birge would be out there seeking Richard Atlee. And the full implication of that had only just now, for the first time, registered on Richard. Gone was the impassivity, the almost god-like absence of human emotion that was so characteristic of his features. Now, for the first time, he seemed aware that he was in danger. He was genuinely frightened, and I must confess it pleased me.
He stood there breathing heavily and waiting for me to tell him what to do. Still, I couldn’t get myself to speak, nor did I even want to. For if he wanted me to help him to escape, I wasn’t about to. My instincts at that moment were all for self-preservation. I had a dread of seeing Richard fall into Birge’s hands, but I wasn’t about to compromise myself any further by helping him get away. I could see the possibility of Birge’s linking me to him as an accomplice. At first it sounded absurd. But I wouldn’t put it past Birge. For him, it would’ve been two birds with one stone. He would’ve liked nothing better than to charge me with harboring a dangerous criminal. Richard kept staring at me, waiting for me to speak. I half believe he’d read my thoughts, that he could see me plotting my own salvation at the expense of his. Suddenly there was a look of betrayal on his face. He gazed down at the crumpled figure at his feet and appeared to be saying, “I did this for you. And now see how you repay me.” That’s what he appeared to be saying to me.
Suddenly he whirled, spun around, till his back was facing me. Then he whirled again, a small yipping sound like that of a frightened puppy squeezed from his lips. Then he was running, but not moving—just standing in one place—a flurry of agitation at his feet and small puffs of dirt and gravel rising all around him. Then he was streaking full speed up the drive. I thought for a moment he was heading toward the bog, and I was already congratulating him for having enough brains to save his skin, as well as sparing me a great deal of difficulty.
But just as he was passing the back porch, he veered sharply and ducked into the kitchen door, still hanging open on one hinge. I started to call out his name, but nothing came except a half-strangled cry. I stood there goggle-eyed and unbelieving. He’d gone back into the house.
I found an old tarpaulin in the barn and with it covered the body of the boy, then went quickly in after Richard.
The first thing I did was to release Alice. I took the pistol from her and led her back into the bedroom and sat her down on the edge of the bed. She appeared to be in a state of shock.
“Wait here, I’ve got to make a call.”
She nodded as much as to show me she understood. I left her there and went back down and called Birge’s office. A man answered. I didn’t even ask to speak with Birge. I told the man who I was and that a dead body was lying out in my drive. Then I told him to tell Birge to come and fetch it.
This time there was no smirk in the voice I was speaking to. The person on the other end sounded startled and a little frightened. Clearly at a loss for words, he kept calling me “Sir.”
“Send Birge to collect the body,” I said again. “It’s on his head. Not mine.”
When I hung up the phone, there was Alice standing there, ankle deep in wreckage, her face gone a sickly white.
“Is the poor child out there?” she whispered.
“Yes. Spattered all over the driveway.”
“Oh God, no—Richard.”
I tried to lead her off, but she held back, clutching my hand.
“Where is he?” she asked, her eyes staring terribly. “Richard? In the crawlspace.”
“What’s that you said about the driveway?”
“The driveway?”
“You said Richard was spattered on the driveway.”
I suddenly realized she didn’t know anything about the dead boy on our driveway. She thought I’d been talking about Richard.
“No,” I said, “I was wrong. I misunderstood you. Richard is fine.” I moved to her. When I reached her I put my arm around her. She seemed so pathetically small. “Come,” I said, “I’ll take you upstairs.”
She seemed to accept that, and only then did she permit me to lead her back upstairs. “Poor child,” she kept mumbling all the way. And even when I put her to bed, half in shock and half in a daze from two powerful sedative tablets, she was still mumbling those words: “Poor child. My poor, poor child.”
“Get him out,” I thought to myself clattering back down the steps. “Get him out?” But not for one moment did I believe that he had any way of getting out, even, that is, assuming he were willing to go—an assumption that struck me as highly improbably.
Undoubtedly Birge, by this time, was well aware of what had happened. He was most certainly already on his way out. I’d called his office about fifteen or twenty minutes back, and there was no answer. The trip was about forty minutes. It was only a matter of moments before he’d be here pounding on the door, or what was left of it, demanding blood for blood.
“Richard.” I stood outside the crawl entrance calling softly into it. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear breathing somewhere back deep in the hole—a hoarse, rasping ugly sound.
“Richard.” I called again into the darkness and heard him scurry and dig further back into the shadows.
“Richard. The sheriff is going to be out here any
minute. You’ve got to get away from here.”
I waited, staring into darkness. “I can’t guarantee your safety if you should fall into his hands.”
Still no answer.
“I have two hundred dollars in cash in the house,” I went on. “I’ll give it to you. I’ll give you the car. Take it and run. As far as you can.”
Silence roared back at me from out of the hole.
“Richard, I can’t help you any more.” My voice was a mixture of pleading and exasperation. “I can’t save you this time. You’re in great peril, and you’ve got to try and save yourself.”
The only sound I could hear was the sound of my pulse throbbing at my temples. “For God’s sake, what do you want?” There was another scurrying movement, this time toward me. And then he spoke:
“I ain’t goin’.”
“Birge’ll be here any minute.”
“I ain’t leavin’.”
“Birge’ll be here any minute.”
“I ain’t leavin’.”
“The boy out there is dead. You killed him. Do you understand that?”
“I ain’t leavin’ here.”
“These people here—if they get their hands on you—”
“Never leavin’—”
“Richard. Believe me. I’m not trying to get rid of you. But it will be very bad if you stay.”
“Never, never leavin’.”
He went on like that. Not sentences. Mindless, detached little mutterings. Things I couldn’t hear and didn’t want to. Past all reason.
But of course I’d known it all along—just how he’d react. I knew he couldn’t get himself to go. He’d wandered and searched for nineteen years just to find us; now that he had, he wasn’t going to let a little matter such as the safety of his own neck endanger anything he’d won over the past few months.
I’ stood there a while longer wringing my hands and gaping at the hole. Then I turned and walked slowly up the stairs.
When I got back up, it was close to 2 A.M. Birge was already out in the driveway with several other men. He’d got there only moments before. There were two cars parked out in front of the kitchen—one a patrol car and the other, Birge’s station wagon with a tower light swiveling round and round on the roof, thrusting a blood red shaft of light far out into the night.
From where I stood on the back porch I could see Birge crouching over the body on the ground. He had pulled back the tarpaulin and was groping for a pulse. Several times he prodded the body with his finger. It was the same sort of motion you see women use to select meat in a supermarket. After a while he pressed his thumbs on the lids of those ghastly upturned eyes. Then dragged the tarpaulin back over the body.
He looked up and saw me walking toward him. “Bobbie Winton,” he said when I reached him. “Nice boy.”
“Delightful,” I replied. “He tried to burn my house down tonight.” Young Winton’s arsonist tendencies didn’t appear to faze Birge. Still crouched over the tarpaulin, he looked up at me. “You got yourself some trouble here.” It angered me, the way he said it. Smug and satisfied it was, as if he were saying, “Now I gotcha.”
“You got yourself a pack of trouble now,” he went on. “You’ve got some trouble, too,” I shot right back. “If you’d sent someone out here when I called—”
“I did send someone out. They looked around. Found nothin’. And come right back.”
He said all that with a straight face and a voice full of touching sincerity.
“Ain’t that so, Brody?” He turned and spoke to one of the men hovering just behind him. “Mister Graves here looks a little dubious, Brody. Tell him what you seen.”
A great hulking creature with a beer belly and the smell of stable leather all about him shuffled out of the shadows. He wore one of those wide-brimmed trooper hats, and when he spoke the red beam from Birge’s tower light kept swinging across his bloated purplish features.
“That’s right,” he said in a voice almost comically high for a man his size. “Jes’ like the sheriff says—I come out here ’bout eleven-thirty or so and looked around. I seen nothin!”
“That’s a lie!” I fumed. “That’s a damn lie! If you were anywhere near here at eleven-thirty, you would’ve seen this driveway choked with cars and those boys swarming all over the place.”
“I come right in here,” he went right on as if I hadn’t said a word. It was as if he’d memorized it all by rote and was afraid to stop for a second for fear he’d forget his lines. “I walked round the barn and the back of the house and all round the grounds. I seen nothin’.”
Birge shot me a look of glowing satisfaction.
“He’s lying,” I said. “Can’t you see he’s lying?” I grabbed a flashlight from the trooper who’d just spoken and threw a beam from it up over the house, so that it fell on the windows and the kitchen door, with all of its glass punched out and hanging on a hinge.
“You think that’s a figment of my imagination?” I snapped at Birge.
“Didn’t say it was. Just said my man wasn’t out here when it happened.”
“Well, he damned well should’ve been. I’ve called your office at least a half-dozen times in the past month with prowlers and intruders and God knows what out here, and you deliberately—”
I could see his face turning as I spoke. It was like watching a bowl of milk curdle. But I couldn’t stop myself now. I rolled right on.
“Don’t think this is the end of this thing for me, either, sheriff. I’ve only just started. And there’ll be reports and investigations—right on up to the governor—”
Up until that moment he’d spoken civilly to me. Or at least there was a pretense of speaking civilly. In the next moment something harsh and ugly crept into his voice. “Where’s that animal you keep down your cellar?”
. At first I didn’t know what he was talking about. “If you mean the boy, he’s not here.”
“I got twenty witnesses or so, say they seen him beat the livin’ hell out of the Winston boy tonight.”
“What’re you going to do about those twenty witnesses.” I asked. “You think they were just out here sightseeing tonight?”
“You leave them boys to me.”
“I left them to you once before, and they beat up my boy.”
“Your boy?” Birge shot me an amused glance. Thinking back to it, it was a peculiar thing for me to say at that moment.
“Where is your boy?” He said with all the sniggering malice he could muster. “You better tell me now.”
“He’s not here,” I said.
“Then I don’t s’pose you’ll mind my taking a little look around.”
“You don’t suppose he’d be fool enough to sit around here and wait for you.”
“I frankly don’t know what a freak like that’d do.” He laughed and looked around at the others. They all laughed along with him as if on cue. Birge was clearly pleased with himself. “I’ll just take me a little look around.”
My mind was going at a feverish pace. “Not if you don’t have a search warrant.”
I knew he didn’t. It pulled him up short, and there was a look of surprise on his face. Frankly I was surprised, too, at my own audacity.
“You sayin’ I can’t go through here without a warrant?”
“Exactly.”
“Now I know you don’t mean that, Albert.”
“I assure you I do. And to you, it’s Mr. Graves.” I enunciated my name in a very brisk, clipped manner. He was still incredulous.
“You mean to say I got to have a warrant?”
“I don’t say it, sheriff. The law says it. And you above all ought to know enough to respect that.”
He stood there for a while a little puzzled, his hands on his hips, his high black boots spread wide, and shaking his head. He knew I had him, at least for the moment. “Okay, Mr. Graves. I’ll get you your fucking warrant.”
“Thank you, sheriff.”
He looked at me for a long while just oozing hate. Then he ad
dressed Brody over his shoulder while still staring at me.
“Go on back to town and wake Judge Harrington. Tell him what happened out here tonight, and you tell him Mr. Graves says I got to have a warrant to search his place. You tell him I want that warrant quick. Now.”
“You gonna stay out here?” Brody asked him.
“Gonna sit right out front in my car. Make sure no one leaves here.”
My heart sank then, thinking about Richard below in the crawl.
“Not on this property,” I said. “If you care to wait you can go out on the road. But you can’t wait on this property.”
Birge crossed his arms and stared at me. There was now a look of exasperated amusement on his face. I got the feeling he even admired me a little.
“Okay, Mr. Graves. He flicked the wide brim of his hat so that it made a snapping sound. “I’ll be glad to wait out on the road.”
He and the others started for their cars. When Birge reached his, he took the floodlight on his side window and played it up across the face of the house where he could see all the pits and scars of recent battle.
“Kind of reminds you a bit of Harlow Petrie’s place, don’t it?” he said, and they roared out of the drive laughing and leaving deep tire scars in the gravel.
Chapter Sixteen
It was getting on to 3 A.M. when Birge and his men backed out of the driveway. I could still see them out on the road huddled in conference. Then one of the cars made a sharp U turn and sped back in the direction of town. Birge’s station wagon remained there pulled up on the side of the road with the red tower light swiveling slowly round and round, like a dragon’s eye in the dark.
There was very little time left before Birge’s men would be back with the warrant. I calculated an hour and a half at best. If Richard was to get away he’d have to move quickly in order to put some distance between himself and Birge. There was no hope now of his leaving by car, for that would mean having to drive off in front of Birge. No. The way out now was through the back. Out the cellar door and across the bog.
Crawlspace Page 25
