Greg knew he should edge toward the door. But he felt unable to move. She held him with her voice, her faraway eyes, wise with grief. “That’s when I first found out, you see. I was in the hospital for a long time, after the accident. And I was weak when I came home. Walter took care of me.”
She shifted on her chair and gazed back into the past. “No one could ever know the guilt. The agony.” Her words came haltingly, like someone speaking a foreign language.
“No,” he murmured, picturing it. “No, I guess not.” He could not tear his gaze from her. He had just told her that her husband was a murderer, that his latest victim was here, in her house, and she was rambling on about the past. She must be crazy, he thought. But despite her vague, confused manner, she did not seem crazy to him.
She looked up at him and spoke as if she had read his mind. “I know you think it’s strange…you say this terrible thing about my husband. And I’m not surprised by it. I want to explain to you… You see, I’ve known for a long time.”
“That your husband was a murderer?” Greg exclaimed.
“Oh, no, not that. No, of course not. But I’ve known that he was not a normal person. Since the accident. You see, he never mentioned the accident. He took care of me, and he brought me back to this house, and he never said a word about it.” She frowned, as if she were trying to assess it again, to piece it together with this new information about her husband. “I told you, I was used to his being…reserved. It had been…disappointing for a bride, but the children were so full of…” Her face lit up, then dimmed. “Well, they were children. But, as I say, after the accident he was kind, and he never, never said a word of reproach. Everybody said it wasn’t my fault, and he would always agree. But I figured that beneath it all, he must be so mad at me that he was ready to explode. So, finally, one day, I said to myself, Emily, you have to face him. No matter what. You have to bring it up.” Suddenly she looked up at Greg with an expression of embarrassment on her face. “Maybe you don’t want to hear all this,” she apologized. “I usually keep it to myself. But you seem like someone who would understand “
“No, go on,” said Greg, knowing he should bolt from the house, knowing he couldn’t. He had to let her speak.
“I went into the living room, where he was sitting, reading.” She pointed across the kitchen as if she could see him there. “And, I said, ‘Walter, I have to talk to you. I know how you must hate me…’
“And he looked up and said, ‘No, I don’t hate you.’” Emily looked up at Greg, wonderingly. “Can you imagine how relieved I felt? I could see that he really meant it. There was no anger in his eyes, or his manner. And it was like something was freed in me and I broke down and began to babble and weep. I said, why couldn’t I have been the one who died, and about our babies, and how nothing would ever bring them back, and I went on, and then he looked at me and do you know what he said?”
There was an expression on her face of incredulity, almost of wonder, and of horror. Greg shook his head, mesmerized by her face. “What?” he whispered.
“He said, ‘It’s too bad, isn’t it?’” She gazed at him, letting the banality, the indifference, of the words sink in. “Just like that. Like he was talking about some children he had read about in the newspaper. It’s too bad.”
Greg shuddered. Automatically, without thinking, he tried to explain the man, as a way of comforting her. “Sometimes men have trouble saying…” And then he stopped. She was right. Walter Ference was inhuman, a killer…
“No. That was it. Up till then I had always told myself he was a man who kept his feelings hidden. But then I understood. There was nothing hidden. I knew I was alone. Completely alone. I have been alone ever since.”
“Yes,” said Greg. “You need to get away from him.”
Emily shook her head. “You don’t understand. It’s part of my punishment,” she said mildly. “For my sons.”
“But you’re not to blame. It was an accident.”
Emily smiled at him. “How kind you are. You’re the Newhall man, aren’t you?”
Greg looked at her in surprise. She had known it all along, he thought. “Yes.”
“It’s strange. Walter went off to your house not long ago.”
Greg’s heart was gripped with fear. Sweat broke out all over him. “What for?”
“I don’t know. Your wife called him. And now, here you are. Are you giving yourself up?” she asked in a small, reedy voice.
“No,” said Greg.
A knocking on the door startled them, as if they were waking from the same dream. Emily rose to her feet. Greg gazed at her desperately.
Without a word, Emily turned and walked out of the kitchen. Greg heard her go to the front door and open it.
Larry Tillman stood at the door, another cop on the steps below him. “Emily?” Larry asked. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Larry,” she said gently.
“We just got a call from one of your neighbors saying they spotted a prowler outside your house.”
“I haven’t heard anything.”
“Well, Walter wasn’t around so we decided to come and check it out for him. This guy, Lund,” said Larry, consulting his pad of notes, “thought he saw the guy go into the basement.”
Emily nodded, comprehending. She frowned at the floor, and then she looked up. “Well, you’d better go down there and have a look,” she said.
She stood back and let in the young cop and his partner. “The cellar door is in the kitchen.”
“Thanks,” said Larry.
He followed her through the house to the kitchen. The gun was gone from the table. There was no one in the kitchen. Emily led them to the cellar door and opened it.
“Here,” she said, flipping a switch at the top of the stairs. “You’ll need a little light.”
Chapter Forty-three
Karen gripped the railing with both hands and struggled down the stairs on rubbery legs toward Greg’s office. Walter prodded her from behind with the gun, so that she stumbled as she went.
“What can you ever hope to gain by this?” Karen mumbled. “You can’t get away with this. Sooner or later my husband is going to be exonerated. If not with this evidence, then some other way…” “Shut up,” said Walter. “Open the safe.” Karen looked helplessly from the safe to the detective. Once she gave him the papers she had no more proof. No one would believe her. She and Jenny would just be considered desperate liars. If only she had not called the police. Or if she had just contacted the police chief. Maybe that would have been all right. Or better still, waited for Arnold. This man seemed to have a personal vendetta against Greg, and he would stop at nothing to destroy him.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “Do you mean to convict my husband at any cost? Is it because he escaped? Made the police look…” She started to say “foolish” but thought better of it. “Don’t you understand? He only did it because he knew he was innocent and he thought no one would believe him…”
“My reasons are none of your business,” said Walter. “Now open the safe.”
Karen felt tears coming to her eyes. In her heart she said to Greg, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I had no idea about the police. She tried again. “Look, you saw the copies. They don’t even identify the man who was assaulting Linda…”
The pounding started again on the floor of the upstairs closet. “How long do you want to leave her in there?” said Walter.
Karen looked fearfully at the ceiling.
“Get the papers,” he said.
She wanted to threaten him or curse him for his cruelty, but it was too dangerous. He might take his displeasure out on Jenny. She wouldn’t put it past him. There was no other choice but to appease him. She had to think of Jenny first. She knew it was what Greg would want. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
She bent down to the safe, and her hands trembled on the dial. For a moment she truly could not remember the numbers. All she could think of was this man standing over her,
willing to brutalize a child to get his way. An adult was one thing, but how could he be so cruel to a young girl? Jenny would never forget this. She would be scarred for life. Karen started to say it. She started to say that only the worst kind of creature would victimize a helpless young girl, and then, all of a sudden, a realization ran through her like an electric shock. She bit back the words, grateful he could not see her face.
“What’s taking you so long?” he demanded. He kicked her in the lower back, and Karen gasped at the spasm of pain. She worked the combination with trembling fingers while her mind raced. She tried to do some mental calculations as she rotated the dial. He was the right age. He could have known about Randolph Summers through some kind of police thing. Maybe a Wanted poster or something that crossed his desk. He was certainly in a position to have framed Greg. It couldn’t be. But it could. She knew it could. It all made an awful kind of sense now.
She heard the click as the combination caught, and so did he. “Open it,” he said.
With stiff fingers she jerked down the handle, and the door to the safe swung free. Taking a deep breath to calm her shaking, Karen reached inside. She put her hands on the papers and pulled them out. This changed everything. Suddenly the most important thing was to satisfy his demand and get him out of the house. Lock the door against him. This was a monster who preyed on young girls. And her Jenny was just upstairs. She had to pretend a defiance she no longer felt. Her stomach was heaving, and a cold sweat broke out all over her. Make it good, she thought.
“You’re a disgrace to the police department,” she said. “Railroading an innocent man like this.”
He kicked her in the side this time, and she doubled over, gripping the door of the safe for support. Breathing in caused a shooting pain. Walter snatched the papers from her hands.
“Get up,” he said.
Numbly she rose to her feet. She saw him crumple Greg’s last chance into a ball and stuff it into his pocket. The newspaper clipping crackled as if it had been lit by a match. She felt a fleeting sadness, but there was no time for it. She had to maintain an attitude of indignation. He must not suspect that she had guessed his secret.
“Back upstairs,” he said.
Limping because of the pain in her side, Karen shuffled to the steps and started up them. “All right,” she said as she reached the top step. “You have what you want. Now why don’t you get out of here and leave us alone.”
“Open the door of the closet,” he said.
Karen’s heart shriveled with fear. She knew it showed on her face. She saw his eyes change.
He reached out, grabbed her arm, and threw her roughly away from the closet door.
“No,” she cried.
He unlocked the door and pulled Jenny, who tried to bite his hand, out of the closet.
Karen scrambled up and grabbed her daughter. He allowed her to pull Jenny away. Maybe it wasn’t too late, Karen thought desperately. She tried to resume her posture of defiance. “Get out of my house,” she said. “Take your filthy papers and go.”
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “I just can’t leave you here with this story. Someone might take you seriously.”
The look in his eyes was terrifyingly cold. Karen groped for an answer. “No one in that corrupt police department will listen to a word I say. Even I know that.”
Walter gave her a thin, bemused smile. “You won’t have a chance to tell them,” he said. “Not after your suicide. It’s perfectly understandable. A woman pushed to the brink by all the pressures—finding out about her husband being an adulterer, and a killer. Suicide is the most natural thing in the world. And, of course, you would take your child with you. You wouldn’t want to leave her behind to face a hostile world all alone. They’ll find a gun in your hand.”
Jenny began to sob.
Karen realized with a terrified certainty that he was not just toying with her. Not trying to scare her. He was merely informing her of his plans. “That cop outside knew you came here,” she cried. “He’ll know it was you.”
“I thought of that,” said Walter calmly. “I told him that you had called me, that you were hysterical when you called, distraught, and that you demanded to see me. The police presence was driving you over the edge. I told him I would handle it. He understood.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Karen pleaded. “I won’t say anything. I promise. You’re right. No one would believe me anyway. They’ll just think I’m an hysterical woman.”
“You’re too much trouble,” Walter said disgustedly. “Besides, you know you wouldn’t keep quiet. Women never do.”
“All right,” said Karen. “Let Jenny go. She’s just a child. She has her whole life ahead of her. I don’t care what you do to me, but spare my daughter.”
“Oh, I understand,” he said. “After all, she could just as well be my daughter. But age is no advantage in this case. Lots of girls her age are just as treacherous as their mothers. Worse, even.”
As he spoke he was herding them into the living room. “Now let’s try to do this the way it would actually happen,” he said half to himself. “Naturally, you would shoot the child first, and then yourself.”
“Mom,” Jenny sobbed, clinging to Karen, “why is he doing this?”
“So,” he said, reaching for Jenny’s arm, holding the gun to her head, “let’s have you over here.”
Karen was paralyzed with fear. If he had chained her to the spot, he could not have more effectively subdued her. The sight of the gun at Jenny’s head was the perfect means of controlling her. And she realized that if he killed Jenny, she would no longer care what happened to her. She would not want to live. Suddenly everything was very clear. There was no use in hoping that he was just terrorizing them or that he would hesitate to carry out his threats. This was the man who had killed Linda. There was no telling how many others. He would shoot her child in front of her eyes. If she did not act, there would be no second chance.
Like a lioness, she coiled her muscles tight, then sprang forward, taking him by surprise and knocking Jenny out of his grasp. “Run!” she cried. “Jenny, run!”
Jenny stood where she was pushed, frozen to the spot, staring at Walter’s gun.
“You stupid fool,” said Walter. “Move.” He tried to shove Karen out of the way to get to Jenny. Instinctively Karen started to shove him back. The gun rose in front of her eyes like a hissing snake. Suddenly, instead of resisting, Karen turned to her daughter, knocked her over and fell on top of her. Jenny cried out in pain as she hit the floor. Karen sprawled on top of Jenny, covering the child’s body with her own. She grasped Jenny’s wrists beneath her and held her tight. “You’re going to have to explain how I shot myself in the back,” Karen said.
“Get off of her,” Walter growled.
“Go to hell,” said Karen. She could fell Jenny’s thin little form beneath her, trembling and heaving with sobs. “I’m sorry, honey,” she whispered. “Can you breathe?”
Jenny’s reply was muffled.
“I said move!” Walter bellowed.
“In your dreams,” said Karen.
“All right, bitch,” he said. “All right. Have it your way.”
Karen did not look up, but she could feel him coming toward them, crouching down beside them. She let go of Jenny’s wrists and placed her hands gently over Jenny’s ears, as if to muffle the sound of a passing train for a toddler.
Walter crouched down and placed the barrel of the gun at her temple. “All right,” he said, balancing on the balls of his feet. “We’ll do it this way. You first. Then her. You’re not saving her by covering her like that.”
Tears came to Karen’s eyes as she acknowledged the truth of what he said. “I know it,” she said, “I’m doing the only thing I can.”
“Too bad,” said Walter.
He pressed the gun to her head, and Karen shuddered at the sensation. Jenny was sobbing. “I’m sorry, baby,” Karen crooned. “I’m sorry.”
Karen closed her eyes,
said a prayer, and then heard the thunderous blast of a gunshot.
Walter yelled and fell backward. Karen looked up and saw Greg in the doorway, his stubbly face pale and sweating, his eyes glittering, a smoking gun wavering in his hand.
Walter regained his balance, adjusted his glasses on his head, and sneered at Greg. “You’re not a very good shot,” he said.
“Move away from my family and I’ll do better,” said Greg.
Karen scrambled up, and Jenny lifted her head. “Dad!” she screamed.
“You heard me,” said Greg. “Drop your gun and move away from them.”
Karen and Jenny clung together and held their breath as Walter laid the gun on the floor and stepped back. Then, before Karen could stop her, Jenny jumped up and rushed to her father, throwing her arms around him. “Daddy,” she cried, “you’re home.”
Startled by Jenny’s sudden move, Greg, already weak with fever, staggered back and lost his footing for a moment. Walter, seeing his opportunity, lunged at him. Greg pushed Jenny roughly out of the way, and the two men grappled, locked together in a deadly embrace. Karen scrambled for Walter’s gun on the floor, but once she had it in her shaking hands, she could not use it. She knew nothing about guns and did not dare shoot at the two men fighting for fear that she would hit Greg instead of the detective. “Call 911,” she ordered Jenny as she brandished the weapon helplessly. Jenny turned to do as she was told. Before she could reach the phone, a shot rang out. Greg and Walter stared at one another, and then Greg’s grip on Walter loosened. Blood seeped all over the front of his shirt and his eyes rolled back into his head.
“Oh, my God,” Karen cried.
For a few seconds Karen could not take it in. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as Greg’s legs crumpled beneath him and he sank to the ground, pulling Walter with him.
“Greg!” she screamed. Before she could think of anything but Greg, broken and bleeding on the floor, Walter turned on her, charged at her, and grabbed at her wrist, wresting the weapon from her hand. She tried to resist him, but it was no use. He was stronger than she was, and it took him only seconds to overpower her and drive her to the ground. She could hear Jenny wailing.
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