“Good grief, is it having some kind of fit?” Mrs. Mallory demanded. “Where did it come from, anyway? Is it your cat, Sylvester?”
“Never saw it ’til Neddy came dragging it downstairs. You know what it looks like, Marge, it’s got poisoned or something. You got rat poison out, or ant poison, or anything like that?”
As the other voices hushed, Rob could hear clearly what was being said. He hung as far out over the sill as he dared, but he still couldn’t see anything except a bunch of heads as the people gathered around the cat.
“I seen a dog like that once, in convulsions, sort of. They took it to the vet and saved its life. Something ought to be done with it, or it’s going to die.”
“Derek? Max?” Mrs. Mallory asked, sounding uncertain.
“I’m allergic to cats,” Derek said, but Max spoke at the same time. “Sure, I’ll go, if somebody can hold the cat. Get a towel or something to wrap it in, so you don’t get scratched.”
“Maybe it’s got rabies,” someone suggested.
“Naw, it’s poisoned,” Sylvester insisted. “I seen the dog, did the same thing, like that. You better hurry, or there’s no use going at all.”
Rob felt as if something had caught his heart and lungs in a giant vise, squeezing so that he couldn’t breathe, yet the blood was throbbing in his ears so loud he could hear it.
Poisoned. The cat had been poisoned.
He didn’t think Neddy had let go of it since he’d carried it out of Rob’s room, so it hadn’t had time to get into anything like ant poison, even if there was any around. He didn’t think there was, or somebody would have told him.
But just before Neddy took the cat downstairs, it had had something to eat. A bit of the chicken off Rob’s tray.
He licked his lips, staring at the tray, and he thought he was going to be sick. Whoever the murderer was, he was right there in the house.
Eleven
He hadn’t eaten any of the chicken, simply because he wasn’t hungry. He lost what he had eaten, and it left him shaky and weak-feeling. He stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Boy, Darcy’d really have cause for complaint if his pictures came out looking like he did right now. His skin had a greenish cast, and the black eye was grotesque along with it. There were Frankensteinlike scabs healing over the scratches. He could play a part in a horror movie without any makeup, just the way he was.
It could be he was jumping to conclusions. His father sometimes chided his mother with the words, “Honey, you’re jumping to conclusions. You don’t have enough evidence to know that for sure.”
He rinsed out his mouth and spat in the sink, making his way slowly back down the hall. He didn’t have any real evidence, either. Maybe the cat ate something just before he came in the window with Sonny, something that was poisoned. Rob didn’t have any idea how long it took poison to work. Some kinds he thought were pretty fast, other kinds took a longer time.
The cat was hungry when it came in. Really hungry, Rob remembered. He didn’t think it had had anything to eat since it got lost. Which would mean the only thing that could have poisoned it was the chicken.
His first impulse was to destroy the remaining chicken, before anything else could happen. He actually picked up the tray before he realized how foolish that would be. If there was one thing he needed, it was to have some concrete evidence that he wasn’t making this all up. Poisoned food would have to convince them all.
Where to put it, then? Maybe whoever it was would expect him to eat it all, so there wouldn’t be anything left to test. But if he didn’t die, it would be clear he hadn’t eaten it, right? And so whoever it was would look for it, because if the person had been seen bringing up the tray he wouldn’t want any proof around that it had poisoned food on it.
He’d look in Rob’s room for it, if he got the chance. So this wasn’t a good place to keep it.
Darcy’s room, he decided. She’d be there yet tonight, but she wouldn’t be poking around in odd corners. Her luggage was all packed for her honeymoon; the stuff she was wearing to get married in was all right out in plain sight because she’d been showing it to everybody.
He didn’t know if the poison was on everything, or just the chicken. He looked it over carefully, but he couldn’t see anything different about it. He’d eaten a little of the potato salad and some carrot sticks, so he guessed they’d been all right. He hoped they had. He hoped it wasn’t just taking longer to work because he was bigger than the cat.
Everybody was downstairs. They’d all had something to eat and pretty soon they’d be leaving for the church, the ones who were in the wedding party, for the rehearsal. He didn’t know if they’d have to come back upstairs for anything before they went or not, but he’d better hurry, just in case.
Darcy’s room was a mess. He stared around it, wondering why his mother had such a fit about his room when Darcy’s was so much worse.
Her bridal finery was hung all over, and there were open suitcases on the bed and two chairs, and he could see six pairs of shoes on the floor without even walking all the way into the room. She’d packed a few things to take to the new apartment, and the open boxes stood about.
Where should he hide the poisoned chicken? He wondered, if nobody found it for a while, if the food itself spoiled, would they still be able to detect the poison?
He thought so. He remembered a TV movie where they’d dug up this guy’s remains after he’d been buried for months, and they’d been able to tell that he’d been murdered by a poisoner.
So if he put it where a searcher wouldn’t expect it to be, and where somebody’d be sure to find it sooner or later, even if something happened to Rob himself so he couldn’t point it out to them, they’d know, wouldn’t they?
He bent over one of the cartons destined for Darcy’s apartment. This one looked likely; it contained shampoo, bath oil, powder, and junk like that. She’d dig into the box as soon as she got home. He lifted out the top layer of bottles and boxes and tucked in the remaining pieces of chicken carefully wrapped in the dish towel. Then he replaced the items, noting that it looked no different from before.
All right, what was he going to do now?
Think, first. Think about who had brought up the tray.
Not a peace offering from his mother. That he was sure of. Although she might have suggested that he be fed, she hadn’t been the one to carry it upstairs.
He realized now that it should have seemed odd to him when whoever it was knocked on the door, put the tray on the floor, and then went away. He didn’t want to be seen.
Of course he must have carried the tray through the house, and it was filled with people milling around. But there were far too many to eat at the dining room table, where he knew his mother had set out a buffet supper. They’d carried their trays and paper plates all over the place, including out into the yard and onto the porches. So nobody would think twice about one more person carrying some food around.
A man. It was a man he’d seen. But there weren’t many men it could have been.
A man who had free access to the Mallory house. Mrs. Calloway had died long before his relatives had arrived, and they didn’t know her, anyway. Walt Mallory was gone . . . not that his father was a suspect, he’d been right here in the house when Rob came tearing in to report the old lady’s death, and while he might get really mad at her, he wouldn’t have pushed her out a window.
Steve had gone off somewhere for Darcy. So he couldn’t have brought the tray up. Max was down there, or had been until he went tearing off to the vet’s with the cat. And Derek. Derek had said he was allergic to cats, although he’d never mentioned it before now.
Max and Derek. Was that all the possibilities? Was it Max or Derek?
It didn’t seem possible it could be either one. He’d known them both all his life. They started coming around when Darcy went to high school, years ago. T
hey took her to movies and dances and ball games, and they raided the Mallory refrigerator the same as the family did. Max had a job installing furnaces, and Derek had a big scholarship to learn to be something important, Rob forgot what. Ordinary, everyday guys.
Max? Or Derek?
They both had reason to dislike the old lady, maybe even to hate her. But it took a pretty strong motive, usually, to kill somebody.
Like, to get their money, or keep them from telling something about you that would make you go to jail, or something like that. Old Lady Calloway didn’t have any money that Rob knew of. She griped about every penny she had to spend on anything, like that crummy old hose she’d put in the street so Max would have to run over it.
Fifteen dollars for a hose was high, Max said, but he wouldn’t have killed her to keep from buying a hose, would he?
And Derek? He was Mrs. Calloway’s nephew. He didn’t usually fight with her, because he didn’t see any more of her than he had to. He seldom went into the house. He’d told Rob once that it stunk.
Only the two of them for suspects?
He thought about it and decided it had to be one of them. Max or Derek. Derek or Max.
He was feeling very strange. Sort of clammy, as if he were sweating, although it wasn’t nearly so hot now. And like his stomach was really empty, but the thought of food made him afraid he’d throw up again.
Max and Derek had been friends of the family since they were all kids. How could one of them be a murderer? How could one of them seriously try to kill Rob?
And then he remembered.
There was a way to tell which of them it was.
Sonny had scratched at the outstretched arms. The murderer would carry the marks of the cat’s powerful claws.
He tried to remember what each of them had been wearing earlier in the day. It took a little real thought, because he didn’t usually notice people’s ordinary clothes.
Max . . . Max was wearing white jeans and a blue shirt. The shirt had long sleeves.
And Derek was wearing . . . brown slacks and a yellow shirt. Also with long sleeves.
He heard them coming back, heard their voices, Max’s and Teddi’s, although they were too close to the house to be visible.
“Did you get there on time?”
“Is the cat still alive?”
“Was it poisoned?”
Rob strained to catch Max’s report. “She was poisoned; they’re not sure with what. Maybe somebody put bait out for squirrels or something; they thought it was strychnine, although it’s illegal to use it.”
“Did she die?”
“No, they gave her a shot of something that knocked her out. Doc Hansen said there’s a good chance she’ll pull through.”
“He recognized the cat, too.” That was Teddi, sounding pleased. “It belongs to some people named Ellsworth, about three blocks from here. The cat’s been missing since yesterday. I don’t know how it got into our house.”
“Probably that big ugly thing of yours got himself a girlfriend,” Sylvester suggested, and Rob heard the ripple of laughter.
Rob’s mouth was dry. Would they believe him, if he went down right now and told them he’d fed the cat some of his chicken? Would they take the remaining pieces wherever you had to take it to find out if it was poisoned?
Or would they continue to be annoyed with him, accuse him of making it up, being dramatic, trying to steal the limelight from Darcy’s wedding?
If they didn’t believe him, he’d be in worse shape than he was in now, wouldn’t he? Because whichever of them it was didn’t want him to convince anyone of what he’d seen from the cherry tree, he was down there, right now, mingling with the others.
“Now what?” There was a different note in Uncle Sylvester’s words. He had a deep, booming voice that carried over all the others. “Police car stopping in front, Marge. I swear, this is the jumpin’est place I ever saw.”
“I can’t imagine . . .” That was his mother, sounding worried. “It can’t be Wally . . . I talked to him just a few . . .”
Rob couldn’t see the front of the house from where he was. He slipped quickly down the hall to look out the windows at the top of the stairs.
Sure enough, there was the same police car as had come when Old Lady Calloway died. Riley and Fritz. They sure worked long hours.
Cripes, had they come here to arrest him for making that blamed phone call?
Stupid. Everything he did was stupid. He shouldn’t have said his name until the officer sounded like he believed it wasn’t some dumb kid trick.
Rob’s pulse speeded up and he felt as if he were smothering. He couldn’t hear anything they said to his mother and his uncle, who had walked to the front curb, because the window was closed. If he opened it, they’d hear him; it would only draw attention to himself.
He wished desperately he could make out their words. They didn’t even stand facing him, so there wasn’t any chance of guessing by watching their lips. Fritz threw out a hand toward Mrs. Calloway’s house, and then he saw his mother turn and look up at him.
She couldn’t see him. He knew that, because he was looking through the curtains. But he felt as if she could. She looked . . . what? Upset? Angry?
He stood there, watching, as long as they talked. And then they started, all four of them, toward the house.
They were coming to get him. Rob waited no longer. He fled.
Twelve
There wasn’t time to stop and get anything to take with him, not a sweater for if it got cold or the Mounds bar he had hidden in his desk drawer for an emergency, or anything at all.
They’d be coming up the front stairs, and he had to be out of sight by the time they got to the top.
He didn’t make the mistake of getting trapped in his own room; there was no escape from that, not unless you were a surefooted cat who could stroll along the slanting shingles of the roof.
No, the only way out, except down the stairs, was through the window that stood open for ventilation at the back end of the hall. There was a drop of some six or eight feet to the roof over the utility room. Rob slipped over the sill and jumped, rolling a little on the sloping surface, thinking for sure he’d go over the edge and break his back on the walk below.
He didn’t, though. His hands found the small pipe that came up from the drains in the back bathroom. It slowed him down and he dropped to the ground only seconds before he heard his mother’s voice.
“Robbie! Where are you?”
It was nowhere near dark yet. If anybody was around, they’d see him, sure.
It seemed that no one was, though; they’d all been drawn toward the police car and hadn’t yet filtered back into the rear yard.
Where was he going to go?
He didn’t know. The only thing he was sure of was that he had to stay out of sight, out of everybody’s sight, until his father got home. He had complete faith in him; his father wouldn’t let them put him in jail, or lock him in his room, or make any more attempts on his life. Rob was certain of that.
But until his father came home, he had to disappear. He wasn’t safe even in his own house; if the police didn’t arrest him, he’d still be fair game for a killer.
It was Sonny who gave him the idea.
Rob moved cautiously along the rear wall of the house, peering to see if any of the giggling little girls still wandered about between the houses. They were all gone, except one he especially disliked. Her name was Annabel, and she was about his own age. Once when he’d visited her family, she had hit him in the head with a rock and he’d had to have three stitches.
Annabel was sneaking up on Sonny, asleep on the porch steps. Rob wanted to shout a warning, but this was one time Sonny would have to take his chances. Not that he couldn’t handle Annabel, as far as that went.
The girl pounced, scooping the animal up
against her plump chest. Sonny, outraged, squalled a protest and wrenched himself free, leaving a long red streak down Annabel’s arm.
“Rotten old cat, anyway,” she said after him, as Sonny streaked toward the cherry tree. He was up the tree and through the open window into Mrs. Calloway’s house before she could chase him.
The girl stood for a moment, looking at her scratched arm, muttering. Then she gave an angry kick at something lying in the grass beside the steps, sending it rolling almost to Rob’s feet, and went into the house, slamming the door behind her.
His jar of spiders. Rob stooped to pick it up, noting that the lid was about to come off. That stupid Annabel, she’d have let them all go, after he’d spent hours collecting them. If he left it sitting around in the yard they’d be gone, for sure. If Neddy found them and got the lid off and they found him with spiders crawling all over him, Rob knew there’d be some fits then, all right.
It was really too large a jar to fit into his pocket; he heard the seam rip when he forced it in, and it made an awkward bulge in his pants, but it was either that or abandon the spiders.
Rob hesitated, for there was no way of telling whether or not anyone was looking out the windows on this side of the house. They were all tattletales. Anybody who saw him would tell his mother, and the police. He knew that from past experience. But he had to take the chance.
Sonny was now inside the deserted house. Rob dashed for the cherry tree, flinging himself up into its familiar welcoming branches. Not that he was safe there for long; too many people knew how much time he spent in the tree. He wondered if the garage across the alley was unlocked; sometimes it was. Only he’d have to spend too long in the open getting to it. Any minute they’d come out, looking for him, the police . . . and maybe the murderer . . . all of them.
He stared at the opening through which the cat had disappeared. There was no reason to be afraid of the house any longer; Mrs. Calloway was gone. He couldn’t see Sonny in there, but he was prowling around somewhere, so it wouldn’t be quite like being in there alone.
The View from the Cherry Tree Page 10
