P N Elrod Omnibus

by P. N. Elrod

  Silence.

  The wind wailed in my ears like an echo from a seashell.

  I was solid, staring at the wreckage from the outside. I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten there. Sheer terror, probably.

  It was cold. That was why I shivered so hard.

  The truck had folded sideways around the stump of the broken pole. The pole’s top half lay over the back of the flatbed, lines snapped and trailing on the ground. Shattered glass glinted like new ice.

  I did not have to breathe much to get a whiff of it, the bloodsmell. It was everywhere, mixed with the stink of gasoline, which was also everywhere. I kept a prudent distance, in case there was a spark.

  Through the twisted frame of the back window I saw the shape of a head. Or it could have been a shoulder. No need to check. I did not want to know.

  It moved. Someone inside moaned and coughed. I did not want to, but walked around to the front, glass grinding and snapping into smaller pieces under my shoes.

  I hated what I saw through the spider web cracks of the windshield.

  Ellie was smashed against the passenger door, her scarf pushed back. I noticed for the first and last time that she had dark hair—or maybe that was the blood making it dark. One of her eyes looked normal, apparently alive and aware and staring at me. The other was lost in a pulpy mess that went through the window.

  She shifted a little and the hair shot up on my neck until I realized the motion was not her own but another’s. Lloyd was trying to pry free. He couldn’t open the driver’s door. Desperation gave him inspiration. He brought up a leg and kicked at the cracked windshield.

  Shards flew, struck the hood, and skittered off. He made a big enough hole and hunched forward to creep through it. He was covered in blood and lost more as he crawled out. His breathing was harsh, and he favored his ribs. He wheezed and cried and clutched his left arm. The sleeve from his woolen hunting jacket was torn. Most of the blood came from there.

  He wormed over the hood, lost balance, and rolled off, hitting the ground like a sandbag. When his breath returned, he started whimpering for help.

  I could not bring myself to move toward him.

  Footsteps. Another set of lungs. Susan came up, small in my coat. She brushed hair from her eyes.

  “No need to see this,” I said, stepping between her and the wreck.

  She kept coming, not to her husband lying on the shoulder of the road, but to me. I put my arm around her, selfishly glad of her company.

  “They dead?” she asked in a clear and quiet voice.

  “Ellie’s dead. Lloyd needs help. He’s bleeding bad.” The bloodsmell teased me. “I should make a tourniquet.”

  “No.” she said hollowly.

  The belt on my pants would do. I gently pulled from her and started to unbuckle it. Susan’s hands fell strongly onto mine.

  “I said no, mister.”

  “But—” Then I read the look on her face. I read her bitter and bright eyes, that crystalline awareness transmitting right into me. Taking a life does that to a person. Despite rules and conscience, there is a terrible primitive joy in payback. I recognized it. She might feel bad later, but for this moment it was right and justified.

  Wholly human.

  “No,” she said. “We don’t do nothin’.” Her gaze darted from me to the weakly shivering figure of the husband who had betrayed her and no telling how many others.

  I sighed. “You sure?’

  “Ain’t you?” She read my face in turn and looked okay with the answer.

  She walked over to her husband, stopping just close enough so he could see her, know her. She seemed taller—or he’d shrunk. “Wish you hadn’t done it, Lloyd,” she told him. “I was good to you, more’n what you were to me.”

  Through the pain he looked genuinely puzzled. He could have been too far gone to know what was going on, but my thought was that he had a certain kind of stupidity, the sort that made him incapable of understanding he’d done anything wrong.

  “Help me,” he whispered.

  “You go to hell. You an’ her both.”

  Susan walked back, seeming to diminish with each step until she was normal again, a small young woman, barely past girlhood. She looked up. “Can I go home, now?”

  In answer, I took her arm, leading her to my car. It seemed a long walk. My hands were numb. The wind keened harshly, drowning out any small cries Lloyd might have made.

  Hell, the way he was bleeding, he wouldn’t make it to a hospital. That’s what I told myself. That’s what I’d tell Susan if she had second thoughts on the drive back.

  I got the Buick’s door open and hustled her in. The air was cold, but blissfully still, and the interior smelled comfortably of stale tobacco smoke and damp leather, not blood and gasoline. Susan huddled deep in my coat, her thin face tired but peaceful.

  “The keys are in the right pocket,” I said, almost apologetically.

  “Oh.” She dug for them, gave them over.

  I let the motor run, then got the heater going. Cool, warm, then hot air blew on us.

  My hands tingled from it.

  The wreck was out of range of the headlights, but I could see it. Lloyd’s insignificant figure no longer moved.

  Someone would come by, find and clear the mess, break the news to the widow. I’d done my part. Overdone it. I’d not meant to get them killed, just scare them, but things went out of control just that quick.

  Cruelty, suffering, stupidity, and senseless death: there was always more where that came from. Push me and I push back ten times harder, and it won’t bother me as much as it should. I wasn’t sorry for those two and this time I’d salvaged something out of the horror.

  I put my car into reverse, turning the wheel. We backed up, facing the lake now. Its shifting black surface went on forever, horizon merging seamlessly with the sky. There was an awful lot of it.

  Susan’s white lips compressed. “You know something?”

  “Tell me.”

  “When Lloyd took out that insurance policy, he took one out on himself. I guess it was so it wouldn’t look funny later on.”

  “Guess so.” I agreed.

  “You know something else? He told me that if one of us died in an accident, the insurance would be twice as much.”

  “Well,” I said, hauling the wheel around to take us back to the city, “accidents happen.”

  * * * * * * *

  __________

  IZZY’S SHOE–IN

  Author’s Note: Another invitation from friend, author, and editor Carole Nelson Douglas resulted in this non-supernatural romp for WHITE HOUSE PET DETECTIVES for Cumberland House. This introduces Izzy DeLeon, fearless girl reporter, who later shares the action with vampires Jack Fleming and Jonathan Barrett in THE DEVIL YOU KNOW from Vampwriter Books. Some of the events in this story did occur; a female reporter invaded the Hoover White House disguised as a Girl Scout, and Allen Hoover, the very handsome first son, did keep such pets!

  Washington D.C. 1933

  At five-foot nothing in her flats, Izzy DeLeon was the tallest of the troop of Girl Scouts milling around her. At twenty-one, she was the oldest by ten years, but trusted that her uniform would provide all the cover required for her invasion of the White House. There was safety in numbers, and she counted four full troops gathered by the iron gates awaiting admittance to the grounds. In a hundred girls the chances of her being spotted as the cuckoo in the nest were small so long as she kept moving.

  It worked well; she circulated unobtrusively until the adults called for order and they smartly marched toward the sweeping curved steps to the South Portico. There they stood under the big awnings. Scant protection against the summer sun, Izzy felt the oppressive heat sucking the energy from her. The other girls were as lively as sparrows.

  A gap-toothed waif of eleven gave Izzy a curious stare. For an instant she wondered if she’d missed a spot when scrubbing her face clean of makeup. Would a lingering hint of powder or lip rouge betray her?

&nb
sp; The girl said, “That’s a lot of badges.”

  Izzy glanced down at her shoulder sash, which was covered with a number of merit badges, all of which held little meaning to her. Where she’d grown up you didn’t earn such things, you learned those skills to survive. “I guess so,” she admitted, pitching her voice high.

  “You got a cold?” the girl asked sharply. The troops were here to sing patriotic songs to the president and first lady. Any Scout with a cold would be unwelcome in the chorus.

  Shaking her head vehemently, Izzy then shrugged. “I talk funny, but sing just fine. My mom told me.”

  The girl looked dubious and turned away. Good. The less contact the better. Izzy had flattened her chest with bandaging, thrust her size six feet into size five shoes, and bitten her nails down to look right for the part. The uniform offered perfect protection from the adults, but not kids. One observant little girl could raise the alarm and bring an arrest, and Izzy doubted her editor would be sympathetic enough to bail her out.

  Stick to fashion stories, Isabelle. You’re female, write female-stuff, he’d say, then send her off to cover a daffodil festival or some other dullness.

  Teeth grinding, she dutifully cranked out copy since that was her job, but craved more exciting, germane, interesting things to write. She’d not fought her way out of the lazy swamps of Florida, earned a scholarship, and worked hand over fist for a journalism degree merely to make a living. Izzy planned to be more than a reporter; she would be a world-famous journalist, destined for honors, applause, and the respect of her peers. . .if she could just get away from daffodil festivals.

  The only way to prove herself worthy of an assignment with real meat to it was to go hunting for one. But strangely, in the heart of Washington, D.C., in the swirl of politics and the passionate vituperations resulting from the clash of one party against another, that proved frustratingly difficult. Requests to interview a senator or congressman always landed her in a parlor with their wives, sipping tea. While she managed to make enough copy to please her editor, those encounters had no national importance. The few wives who would speak to her were concerned with matters like raising children in the public eye or promoting their favorite charity and, in one case, sharing a special fudge recipe. Laudable, but not what Izzy wanted.

  But when Herbert Hoover took office, she mounted a more active campaign on the White House itself. Even if she was fobbed off to Mrs. Hoover, Izzy would count that as a victory. Lou Henry Hoover was extremely well-educated and had traveled around the world with her engineer husband. She spoke five languages fluently, had received medals from other countries for her charity work, survived the Boxer Rebellion—surely she would have tales with real weight to share with the American public.

  But after five months of sending in requests, it became more clear with each polite refusal (carefully typed on White House stationery and personally signed by the first lady) that though a gracious hostess, Mrs. Hoover shunned the spotlight. She was inordinately modest about her many accomplishments—unless it had to do with the Girl Scouts.

  Having served as their national president, raising membership from a ten thousand to over a million girls, she was always ready to talk about them—and entertain them. Thus Izzy hatched her idea to get inside the great sanctum. A routine interview with one of the Scout mistresses sparked things. The woman had proudly mentioned her troop’s upcoming visit to the White House and the whole scheme burst upon Izzy’s mind in a flash brilliant enough to impress even Edison.

  She bought the largest-sized scout uniform available at a local department store, a tight fit but manageable. With the connivance of a slightly-misled janitor at the local Girl Scout Little House (she bitterly claimed her baby sister had forgotten everything), Izzy got the Scout’s schedule, and managed to blend in with the crowd of girls. There had been a few hair-raising moments when she thought one or another of the Scout mistresses had spotted her, but nothing came of it. As she’d hoped, each must have thought her to be with a different troop. Now she was only yards from the great oval of the Blue Room. Even coming this far would make a story, but to finally get inside. . .there. . .she spotted movement beyond the sheer curtains of the French doors: people shifting about in the shaded interior.

  The girls were restless with curiosity, some jumping up to better see. Izzy missed Mrs. Hoover’s entrance; had she opened the doors for herself or did one of her four secretaries do the honors or was it a servant? Details like that made interesting color.

  Wearing a cotton dress with a green tint similar to the uniforms, Mrs. Hoover greeted the Scout leaders and troops with a friendly smile. She had pronounced eyebrows and a firm mouth. The smile softened her looks, made her more homey. She proceeded them, leading the way through the Blue Room to a wide, pillar-lined hall, taking their giddy, shuffling parade to the right. They ended up in the vast East Room where their concert would take place. Everyone milled through. Though told to be quiet and respectful of the surroundings, the girls gave in to enthusiasm, squealing at the wide echoing indoor space and impressive decor, which included a grand piano. It was irresistible.

  Izzy hung back as much as she dared, torn between the desire to hear everything Mrs. Hoover might utter and the need to look into forbidden areas. Her chance came when a dozen girls surged toward the piano. The room resonated with loud and inexpert renderings—no, make that random pounding upon the presidential keys, much to the delight of the rest. More squeals, screams, and laughter followed. Control was quickly restored, but by then Izzy had slipped unobtrusively through a door at the southern end while the servants and Secret Service man were distracted.

  She was in the Green Room, and it was thankfully empty. She counted herself lucky to find it unlocked, but part of the Scouts’ visit was to include a tour of the public areas. It must have been left open in anticipation of that. Faced with a choice of five doors, she picked the opposite left, which brought her back to the Blue Room. Some people were talking at the northernmost end of its oval, but no one paid attention as she hurried across and breached the entry to the Red Room.

  It was empty, lighted only by the hot summer sunshine pouring through the open windows. Izzy found herself breathless more from excitement than the muggy afternoon heat. She’d hardly hoped to make it this far. If nothing else she would have an excellent piece about the lack of security within the house. Wouldn’t that bowl everyone over? The nation’s president vulnerable in the most famous house in America. . .of course he wasn’t in this part at the moment, but there was a principle at stake here, and under the byline of Isabelle DeLeon, Izzy would triumphantly shout it forth.

  She wanted more to shout about, though, and to do that required gaining the private quarters in the floors above. What little she knew of the public areas led her to believe access could be made through first the State, then the Family dining rooms. Heart in throat, she set forth.

  * * *

  As with many situations in life, it is far easier to land oneself into a predicament than to make a successful extraction from its coils. Thus did Izzy find herself crouched down behind a bamboo chair surrounded by potted palm trees in a sunlit room that should have been an upstairs hall. This wasn’t on the diagram Izzy had gotten from one of her contacts, a maid who had worked here during the Coolidge administration.

  Mrs. Hoover had been inordinately busy redecorating the family’s private quarters, and she possessed firm, if exotic ideas on how to go about it. The fan-shaped floor-to-ceiling window at the far end washed the room with light, mitigated only slightly by an enormous bird cage full of frantically chirping canaries. Palms, ferns, and other plants loomed everywhere, bamboo furniture rested comfortably on a rattan rug, oriental vases dotted tables and shelves. It would have been a most pleasant place to relax under any other circumstances, but Izzy in her overly tight shoes and constricting, hot uniform was anything but comfortable. She was supposed to be gathering news to report, not hiding like a fugitive.

  She had just been sneakin
g into what she thought was the president’s own bedroom when a bell abruptly sounded, making three sharp rings. Not knowing if it was a fire drill or a burglar alarm, Izzy let instinct take charge and ran quick as scat down the hall, diving for the nearest cover. For the last half hour she had to hold perfectly still, which was becoming more difficult with the cramps shooting up her legs from her outraged feet. She pushed the pain aside, though, for the president himself sat within spitting distance of her hiding place. He and another man were in deep conversation, and though close, Izzy had to strain to hear them. President Hoover was infamous for mumbling into his tie, and she only caught bits and pieces of their talk.

  “You’ll want to watch yourself, Allan,” he said. “I’ve warned them time and again that buying on margin will lead to trouble. I hope you’ll advise your school friends to not take any such risks on the market.”

  The reply was lost to her, the other man was busy with the canaries, and their noise and flapping swallowed his words. Izzy couldn’t believe her luck. Not only was she overhearing the president, but a private chat between the president and his son, Allan. Wasn’t he supposed to be at Harvard? He must have come home for a summer visit.

  “—really can’t say much about anything, or they’ll think you’re trying to influence the market through me,” he replied over his shoulder. Izzy could barely make out his form through the palm fronds. He looked to be as tall as his father, nearly six feet, and would probably fill out into the same strong huskiness.

  The president lighted a large cigar, releasing a cloud of blue smoke. “I know. We must never misuse this office, or even appear to misuse it. It only fuels those Democrat-controlled rags. The way they natter on, you’d think I was the Communist. The things I’m accused of is beyond tolerance. Lies, all of it rubbish and lies.”

  “Don’t pay any mind to them,” said Allan. “They’re always going to be whipping up something out of nothing to sell more papers. Criticism is the best way to do it. You’d think those blasted hack reporters had better things to do with their time—like going after that bootlegging Kennedy clan.”