by Thomas Perry
Jane moved to the closet on the man’s side of the bed. If he had a gun, it would probably be in the closet or in his dresser. She knelt on the floor and ran her hand around the dark closet, feeling for anything that might be a long gun. All she felt were boots and shoes. She reached to the top shelf, but all she could find were hats. She moved to the man’s dresser and began with the top drawers, then moved downward. There was no firearm. On the top of the dresser, she could see that the man had left his wallet and his keys. She took the keys and slipped them into her pocket. She had not seen the car yet, but she would probably find it in the barn. She lay on her belly and reached under the bed, but there was nothing hidden there.
Jane got up and walked down the hall toward the stairs. She sidestepped to get past the dog, then walked carefully down the steps to avoid the blood. She walked through the dining room and found the kitchen at the back of the house. She quietly began opening drawers under the counter. She found clean, folded dishtowels, then silverware, then a drawer of miscellaneous things that collected in kitchens—corkscrews, rubber bands, coupons. Finally, she found the drawer she had known must exist. She examined the knives in it. The boning knife was the right one for the purpose she had in mind. She slid the blade of it into the back pocket of her jeans so she could reach the handle, then noticed a second knife that looked right. It was about the same size, with a seven-inch blade, but the edge was serrated, and the handle was flatter. She lifted the right leg of her jeans and slid it into her sock, then lowered the denim to cover it.
Suddenly she became aware of the sound of the cars again. They seemed much louder and closer than they had been before. She realized that she needed to know exactly where they were before she tried to cross the open yard to the barn.
Jane looked out the kitchen window, but all she could see was the field of low alfalfa. She moved to the front of the house and looked out the window where she had entered. The headlights of the three cars were still moving back and forth across the cornfield in a line, flattening about twenty feet of corn at each pass. Beyond the cars, she could just pick out the shapes of several men, a hundred or more feet apart, walking slowly toward the house over the newly flattened corn. She judged the distance and decided that she still had a few more minutes. She was about to turn away from the window and head for the barn when she saw the other set of headlights.
They were higher than the headlights of the cars, and they bounced upward now and then as they came up the farm road toward the house. It was the Suburban. Jane turned and hurried to the side of the house nearest the barn. She opened a window and pushed her right leg over the sill, just as the Suburban came up and turned, its headlights now shining on the barn door. No, she thought. Not in front of the barn. Anywhere but there. The Suburban stopped, blocking the barn door. Its headlights went out.
Jane pulled her leg back inside and ducked down. She saw the doors open, and the interior light went on. There were two men. The driver was young and muscular. The man beside him was a bit older, with a little gray in his dark hair. They both wore sport coats, as though they were dressed for a pleasant visit to the dead family upstairs. They both got out of the Suburban and slammed the doors, then walked toward the house.
Jane heard the older man say, “I’m not saying Buccio and his guys are useless. It just took me a while to figure out what they’re thinking—how they see themselves—and try to work with it. They’re playing war. He needs to be desperate, like he was a Green Beret behind enemy lines or something. Everything has to be win or die. Look at them out there. They love this, and they’re good at it.”
“Think they’ll find her, Mr. Delfina?”
Jane froze. Delfina. That man was Frank Delfina. She heard the footsteps heading toward the porch.
“If I didn’t, they wouldn’t be here.”
Jane turned and hurried back up the stairs to the second floor. She stepped over the body of the dog and threw herself against the wall just as the front door opened. She heard their footsteps on the hardwood floor.
A light went on. She heard footsteps come close to the staircase. Delfina’s voice said, “Mike. Look at that. They even killed the dog.”
The younger man’s footsteps sounded, then stopped. He said, “It probably barked.”
Delfina said, “I suppose. Turn the light off down here, and we’ll go up and watch from the window.”
“Okay.”
Jane looked at the doors on the upstairs corridor. The one with the farmer and his wife in it looked down on the back of the house, where the alfalfa field began. They would want to see the front. She quietly slipped into the room, then hurried to the closet. She crouched in the back of it and pulled the door closed so that only a tiny crack remained. She kept her ear to it and listened to the footsteps.
She heard Delfina say, “The land is practically flat. From up here, we’ll be able to see for a mile.”
They walked into the guest room. Jane wondered if she could move quickly and quietly enough to slip out and make it across the hall to the stairs.
Delfina said, “I’ll watch this one. You go in there and keep your eyes open.”
The younger man appeared in the doorway to the master bedroom. Jane held her breath as he moved to the window beside the bed. His voice startled her. “Mr. Delfina?”
“Yeah?”
“You can’t see the cornfield from out here. This is the wrong side of the house.”
“That’s right,” he called. “If she’s in the cornfield, they’ll see her, or I will. I want you to cover the field where she hasn’t been yet. If you see her, try and drop her from the window. Even if you miss, Buccio’s guys will hear the shot and come running.”
“Okay.” Jane watched the younger man reach into his coat and pull out a pistol. He stood watching for a few minutes, while Jane’s mind ran frantically through everything she knew. Each time she thought of a way out of this, something stopped her. Maybe she could wait in this closet until daylight came. Maybe Delfina would have to pull his men out and leave. But the others were all moving methodically through the fields, destroying the cover, and when they were through, they would arrive at this house. They would be here in ten or fifteen minutes. They would probably realize that if she had not turned up outside, she had to be in the building. Even if they gave up, they might decide to burn the house to cover the murders.
Jane waited. Any small change would improve her chance of getting out. She watched impatiently. The young man sighed in boredom. He seemed tired of staring out the window at the empty, unchanging field. He let his eyes drift a bit. He looked at the two bodies on the bed. Jane detected no horror at the sight, and not even any visible distaste. He looked out the window again. The next time, he looked around the room. His eye happened to land on the top of the man’s dresser, where his wallet was visible.
The young man turned and looked in the direction of the door. No, Delfina wasn’t watching him. He put his gun away, walked around the bed, picked up the wallet, and examined it. Jane saw him pull the bills out of it and stuff them into his pocket. He glanced at the door again. Then he began to look in the dresser drawers. He seemed to find nothing that interested him, so he moved to the woman’s dresser. There was a jewelry box, but when he opened it, she heard him snort in contempt. He walked back to look out the window again.
A minute later, Jane saw his eyes begin to wander. He turned completely around. She tried to guess what it was, and she decided that it must be the woman’s purse. He had found the man’s wallet, but no purse. He turned away from the window, and she expected him to search the far side of the room, but he didn’t. He walked directly to Jane’s closet and opened the door.
Jane sprang toward him, the boning knife in her hand. She stabbed it into his torso above his belly and pushed upward, toward the rib cage, hoping to reach the heart. His right arm swung hard, and knocked her away from him. The knife was still stuck in the front of his shirt, but he didn’t seem to be aware of it. He reached across it
into his coat to grasp his pistol. Jane threw herself on him, her arms around him to hug his arms to his body, her face within two inches of his. He reacted instinctively, charging forward to push her into the wall.
The impact pounded the wind from Jane’s chest, but she clung to him. She opened her eyes and saw the shocked, empty look on his face. His lunge had pushed the knife in farther. His knees gave way, and suddenly his weight was on Jane. She could not hold him up, and as he slumped toward her, she slid down the wall to the floor with his torso resting on hers. Jane brushed his right hand away from his coat, reached to the spot where it had been, and grasped the handgrip of the pistol.
She looked up and saw Frank Delfina in the doorway. He stepped forward into the dim room. “Great, Mikey! You got her!”
Jane drew in a breath and waited.
Delfina stepped up to the entangled pair, looked down, and said, “I wouldn’t waste too much energy wrestling, babe. He can bench-press twice what you weigh. Get up.”
Delfina’s grin slowly turned to a look of puzzlement. Mike Cirro didn’t look right. Then he saw Jane’s right hand appear, and there was a gun in it.
Jane freed herself from Cirro’s corpse and stood up. “Find the keys to the Suburban.”
He stood motionless, both his hands held out in a pleading gesture. “Hey, I just wanted to talk to you. There was no reason to kill anybody.”
“Get the keys.” Jane stepped along the wall away from Delfina. She watched while he knelt down and patted Cirro’s pockets. Then she saw him reach into the front pocket of Cirro’s pants. He seemed to have the keys. She could hear jingling as he extracted his hand.
Jane watched his other hand. When she saw it close around the handle of the knife, she straightened her arm so the gun was aimed at his chest. “Leave the knife.”
He stood up slowly, holding out the keys so she could reach for them.
Jane said, “Hold on to them. Head for the stairs.”
He walked toward the doorway. “You think I’ll make a good hostage or something?”
“We’re going to drive off the farm together,” said Jane. She reached to the top shelf of the closet without looking and found a baseball cap. “Then I’ll let you off on the road and be on my way.”
When Delfina got through the doorway, Jane prepared to see him dive to the side, trying to surprise her in the hallway. He seemed to sense that she was ready for it, so he simply walked into the hall and down the stairs. Jane kept him eight feet away from her, so she would have time if he tried to lunge for the gun.
When they reached the front door, Jane said, “All right. Drop the keys on the floor and step away.”
He dropped the keys, but moved off only about a yard.
“Farther.”
Delfina obeyed. Jane picked them up and said, “Okay. Out the door and down the steps. If anybody calls to you, answer him. No matter what happens, keep walking at a normal speed. Go right to the passenger door of the Suburban, open it, get inside, and close it.” When he began to move, Jane put the baseball cap on her head and pushed her hair up under it, then followed.
Delfina walked down the front steps ahead of her. She watched him walk straight across the yard, up the little driveway in front of the barn, and get into the car. Jane came around to the driver’s side watching through the rear windows, never taking her aim off the back of his head.
She swung the door open and saw the gun in his hand. He was smiling. She could see it was already aimed at her chest.
He said, “Mike left a spare under the seat. So here we are.”
Several thoughts competed for Jane’s attention. No matter what this man said, it would be a lie. He would torment her until he learned that Bernie’s money was gone, and then kill her. He had a gun aimed at her chest, and she had one aimed at his. If one of them fired, the other would too. Another thing she knew was that the human nervous system could do several things at one time, but it didn’t always do them with the same speed. One action always had priority. She wanted Delfina to talk. If she moved, it would take an extra fraction of a second for him to change priorities and shoot. He would never fire while he was in the middle of a word. “What do you want?”
“I need you to get my money back, and you need me to get off the farm. Let’s see if we can reach an agr—”
Jane fired four times, the bullets piercing his chest. She pulled the gun out of his lifeless hand and tossed it into the back seat, then slid into the driver’s seat and started the Suburban. It took an immense effort to overcome her revulsion and push him up to a sitting position. She reached across him, tugged the seat belt across his chest, and secured it.
She turned on the lights, backed the Suburban up, and then drove slowly along the road. Suddenly, she saw the three cars coming through the field toward the road, just ahead and on her right. As they came, the stalks fell before them. They had heard the shots. She thought of speeding up, trying to get past before they got too close, but she remembered the men with rifles coming along behind.
She drove even more slowly. She put her right hand on Delfina’s chest under his chin, holding his head still and keeping it from bouncing on the bumpy ride. Ahead of her, the three cars were pushing over the last few rows of corn before them. They were nearly at the edge of the road. The drivers saw the Suburban coming, so they paused there. Their headlights glared on the side of the Suburban, illuminating the face, head, and shoulders of Frank Delfina as his driver coasted by, taking him past the acres of flattened corn to the main highway.
37
At nine o’clock the following night, the rental car from Terre Haute pulled up on the street across from the Evansville police department and stopped. The old man at the wheel looked nervously at the wide front doors as a pair of uniformed policemen walked down the steps, then at the young girl beside him.
“After everything that’s happened, being this close to them still gives me the creeps.”
“You’re not a criminal anymore, Bernie. They’re here to protect people like us. Well, maybe not people like us, exactly, but the kind of people we’d be if we hadn’t done anything.”
Bernie looked at his watch, then at Rita. “You know, I was hoping that I wasn’t going to have to say this. But the chance that she’s going to show up isn’t very good.”
“I know,” said Rita. “But she’ll be here.”
“I know she’d want to be here,” he said gently. “And I know she’s smart. But sometimes smart isn’t enough.”
“What are you saying—that you want to leave without her?”
“No,” said Bernie. “Not at all. I haven’t got any pressing engagements. I figured we could wait here a while without attracting those cops. Then we could get some sleep and come back tomorrow night at the same time. It’s just that … well, she’s used up a lot of chances. If things had gone the way she wanted, I think she would have been here, waiting for us. That means things didn’t go the way she wanted. So I think maybe we ought to figure out what’s going to happen next—what we do if she doesn’t show up.”
“I don’t know,” said Rita. “Do you?”
“Well, she’s a specialist, and she seems to have been good at it. I think that we probably ought to do what she told us to. We’ll go someplace, use the identification she gave us, get settled, and try to take care of each other.” Bernie was silent for a few seconds. “Is that okay with you?”
Rita turned, leaned toward him, and gave him a small kiss on the cheek, then looked straight ahead. Bernie could see that there were tears in her eyes.
There was a sharp rap on the window that made Bernie jump. He turned, and Jane was opening the door. “Let me drive,” she said.
Bernie got into the back seat, and Jane took his place and drove up the street.
“What happened?” asked Rita. “Are you all right?”
Jane looked at her, then said quietly, “I’m terrific.” She drove a few more blocks, then said, “Bernie?”
“What, honey?”<
br />
“Coos Bay, Oregon.”
Bernie said thoughtfully, “It’s a hell of a long drive, but on the other hand, it’s not much like Florida, and I’m sick of Florida. Come to think of it, I’m sick of the Midwest, too. And Coos Bay is right on the Pacific, so Rita would have a chance to go to the beach. Don’t care much for the beach myself, but—”
“I wasn’t asking your opinion.”
“Oh,” he said. “Well, Interstate 64 across to St. Louis, then switch to 70. The junction comes right after you cross the Mississippi River, so it’s hard to miss. If you cross Seventh Street, you’ve gone too far. Then you drive a couple of days, take a jog up 15 to 84 in Utah. You get off at Route 20, go across Oregon, and turn left at the ocean.”
It took four days to drive across the country once more. Jane found a house on a hill overlooking the ocean and entered into a lease-to-buy arrangement with the owner in the name of Michael Daily.
When Rita saw the papers, she said, “What about me? Who am I supposed to be?”
“You’re his only living relative: his granddaughter.”
Rita looked embarrassed. “Bernie, if you don’t like that, I can just be your housekeeper again.”
“No, you can’t,” said Jane.
“Why not?”
Jane sighed. “In the first place, the identification I made for you has the same last name. The reason I did so is that in the long run, your best chance is if you protect each other. If something happens to one of you, the only one who can even go into the hospital room is a relative. Bernie is pretty spry, but he’s already over seventy. If he’s suddenly out of the picture, a housekeeper isn’t going to be allowed to live in his house. A granddaughter will inherit it, if we get around to making a will. If you get arrested, they’ll release you into a grandfather’s custody, but not the custody of an elderly employer. I could go on this way for a long time, if you had the patience to hear it.”
