Hard Case Crime: The Vengeful Virgin

by Brewer, Gil

  “What will we do, Jack?”

  Victor Spondell was sliding down the wall, slowly. He watched me, trying to speak, unable to. He slid down the wall and sprawled on the floor, eyebrows bristling.

  “He heard you,” I said. “Over the intercom. He heard everything. Why in Christ didn’t we think of the telephone? A party line. An obvious, tired old business like that?”

  I looked at her. She raised one hand. It smeared on her chin. Then she saw the hand and reacted violently. It was a sight I would never forget.

  “Wash your hand—hurry up!”

  “What’ll we do, Jack?”

  “Wash the hand.”

  I turned and looked at Victor Spondell. She gave a little gasp and started for the kitchen. She stopped in the dinette, then turned and went into her room. I heard the water running in her bathroom.

  Victor was crawling along the rug, toward the front of the house. He was saying things. I couldn’t make out what the words were. I went over and stood in front of him. His hands clawed at my shoes. He stopped and lay there, panting. He looked up at me, craning his neck. His mouth was a black panting hole, the eyes all gone to hell with fear. He collapsed on the floor. You could see the back of his pajamas, up between his shoulder blades, moving in and out like a bellows, with the way he tried to breathe.

  “Mask,” he gasped. “Get—air. Oxygen—mask.”

  I didn’t move. I looked down at him, hearing him, but I couldn’t move.

  Shirley came back. She stood off across the room staring at Victor with a curious expression on her face. It was as if she couldn’t bear what she saw—but you could tell she was going to bear it, anyway.

  “We’ve got to get him in the bedroom,” I said.

  She didn’t speak. I looked at her again. She had both hands clenched in front of her, holding her thumbs like a little girl. She looked like a little girl, standing there.

  Anxious and confused.

  I leaned down, grabbed Victor under the shoulders, and started dragging him toward the bedroom. “Shirley,” I said. “Find something that won’t be missed around the house. An extra blanket would be best. Go in the kitchen and mop up every last speck of blood, and get Mayda wrapped in the blanket.”

  I kept on dragging Victor. Shirley didn’t move.

  “Get going!” I said.

  “I can’t go in there.”

  “You’ve got to. We’ll have to move fast.”

  She clutched at her face with one hand. “I can’t.”

  “All right. Help me with him.”

  She moved slowly after me as I hauled Victor into the bedroom. He was moaning and gasping. I caught him by the arms, and slung him half up on the bed, then flung his legs up. He lay there writhing and twisting, his hands like claws, the tendons sticking out. His eyes glared toward the rack where the oxygen tanks stood. I went over to Shirley. “Stay with him,” I told her. “Don’t leave him for a second.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Get rid of her.”

  “How?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  She kind of leaped in against me, her arms around me. I could feel how tense she was. “Say you love me.”

  I kissed her.

  “Say you love me, Jack!”

  “I love you. You know I love you. Would I be doing any of this if I didn’t love you?”

  She looked up at me. Her eyes were very wide.

  “Shirley,” I said. “We’ve got to move fast. I think I’ll get her car—take her someplace, and fake a wreck. I don’t know yet.”

  “If they find her—they’ll see the knife wound.”

  “Yeah. I’ve got to fix that.”

  “Jack, I didn’t want anything like this to happen.”

  I pushed her away. “Get in there with him.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Keep him there till I get back. If the phone rings, answer it. You’ll know what to say to whoever calls.”

  She stood there staring at Victor’s bedroom doorway. You could hear him in there. Dying.

  Nine

  Somehow, I did what I had to do.

  I carried a casting rod and a couple of plugs in the truck. Sometimes, driving around town on calls, I stopped by different lakes, and had a few tries for bass. It would have to be my alibi now. I drove the truck six blocks from the Spondell house. There was a lake I knew of. I parked the truck, shielding it as best I could in a copse of cedar. It was one of the chances I’d have to take. My explanation, if it ever came to that, would be that Miss Angela had called for TV service. After I left her place, I drove to the lake and made a few casts for fish along the shore. Because the truck might be spotted. It could easily have been seen at Shirley’s. Grace had seen it. It was weak business, but maybe it was weak enough to be believable.

  I dogged it back to Shirley’s. She was in the bedroom with Victor. She got me a blanket. I cleaned the kitchen floor, and the carving knife. I scrubbed the knife with a brush and kitchen cleanser, and did the same with the floor after I had wrapped the body in the blanket.

  I was so worried I couldn’t see straight, and I knew I had to keep calm.

  Mayda Lamphier was still warm. I knew pretty well what I would do.

  “She’ll be found,” Shirley said. “They’ll suspect something.”

  “Nobody’s going to suspect anything. They may never find her.”

  “Victor’s dying.”

  I didn’t say anything. I hardly knew what I was doing. “Go back in there with him. Do whatever you feel you should do.” I looked at her. “Only don’t give him any air. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  She avoided looking at the blanket-wrapped body.

  “I’m scared, Jack.”

  “I know.”

  I waited till she went in there with him. I could hear him again. I hoisted what was left of Mayda Lamphier on my shoulder and went out back. The yard was dark. I took her across the lawn, and through the hedge into her driveway where her convertible was parked, and laid her across the seat. Lights were on in her living room.

  I got under the wheel, backed the convertible out of the drive, and left that place.

  Somebody had to see her car; somebody who knew the car. I drove around the blocks nearby, trying to think.

  I recalled a gas station on the corner of the main highway leading south, not far from this residential section. In all probability, Mayda Lamphier had used it at some time or other. Possibly regularly. It was close enough to her home.

  I went that way. Neons glowed brightly over the station. An attendant was out front under the marquee, taking care of a customer.

  With the gas pedal to the floor, I swerved the car wildly in toward the station, then back onto the highway, and wailed the horn. The attendant couldn’t possibly make out who was driving the car. He turned sharply, then waved and shouted something. I figured he did know the car, and it was what I wanted. Even if he didn’t know the car, he would remember it. I went on, driving like that, swerving from one side of the road to the other. A truck approached from the opposite direction. I cut directly in front of it. The driver slammed the brakes, and rode the horn. I brought the convertible back at the last minute, knowing he would remember, and that it had been seen by the gas station attendant, and the customer, too. It was good enough.

  I opened the convertible up and held it, till I was about eight miles down the road, then took a bisecting country road, and came back toward town again, until I found what I was looking for. I figured it to be about a mile or slightly more from Shirley’s place.

  There was a stretch of old canal beside the road. The road itself was a dark stretch of potholed, highhumped macadam; a back route to town. Trees grew profusely along the canal banks. I had fished the water, and knew it was plenty deep.

  It would have to be a fast job. The road was seldom traveled, but that didn’t mean no one would come along. If I were spotted, if the convertible were seen out here, stopped on the road, we were
done.

  I parked the car on the road, and got out for a quick inspection. Finally I found what I wanted.

  What happened now had to be perfect.

  There was no sound of a car. The night was inert. Not even a cricket. No wind. I found a long, loose limb, took off shoes, socks and trousers, and waded in the water close to the old canal bank. So far as I could make out by testing with the limb, the water was very deep—well over the top of any car. It was turgid water, scummed with weeds and surface moss.

  Dressing, I returned to the car. Still no sounds.

  What I did then was bred of desperation and the knowledge of what could happen if and when Mayda Lamphier’s body ever might be recovered. It was something I could never have done again.

  The convertible top was up. First I unwrapped the blanket, and put it safely in some bushes on the canal bank. Then I stood on the rear deck of the car, and jumped on the convertible top. The canvas top ripped. Steel stays bent. But not enough. I unhooked the top, and using all my might, managed to bend the steel forms under the canvas out of shape, and I finally snapped loose a single steel rod from the driver’s side.

  I slung the body under the wheel. The body had to stay with the car. I couldn’t bind it in there with rope. I jammed an arm between the steering post and the dashboard, and did my best to fasten one of the feet under the gas pedal. The other leg I twisted up around the steering post and propped under the dash, as a lever to hold the body. Then I shoved the head between the twin spokes of the steering wheel. It didn’t look as if it would ever come loose.

  Then the bad part. The knife wound. I took the steel support from the convertible top, got it set, closed my eyes, and drove it into her back through the spot where the knife blade had stuck.

  I heard the sound of a car’s engine. It was distant, but it was tearing up road space, whining in the night.

  I had wanted to take my time. I couldn’t.

  Starting the engine, I reached for the gas pedal. Her foot was underneath, so I couldn’t press it down. It was a serious flaw.

  Back on the road, I saw the car’s headlights shining above tree tops. The oncoming car was rounding a series of S curves about a half mile away.

  There was nothing to do. I yanked at the foot. It wouldn’t come free. I heard myself cursing. It had me out of my head. There wasn’t time now. I reached for the hand throttle, yanked it out, and set it. The gas pedal went down enough so the engine was wound up. But if they found the throttle pulled out, it would be obvious what had been done—or at least suspicious.

  The car wasn’t in gear.

  I let loose the throttle. I was completely out of my mind now. I pulled the shift lever into drive, and yanked the throttle out, and stuck with the car as it bucked and began slowly to move off the road toward the canal. It was all fouled up. I saw the other car coming along the road, then.

  I yanked the throttle all the way out, twisted it into lock position. The car shot toward the canal. I jumped and slammed the door and let it go, and knew I’d made a worse slip still as the convertible leaped off the bank and struck the water. The headlights were off. They had to be on.

  It didn’t make much of a splash. It hit and slid down into the water, with the engine going. Waves splashed against the shore, and the engine had quit.

  I hugged the ground by some brush. The oncoming car swept past, going like hell, headlights glaring across the night. The canal was frothing white where the convertible had gone under.

  The sound of the car on the road gradually diminished.

  I looked at the darkness, and knew I had to go in that water. I had to go down there and make sure. I would never know, unless I did.

  The headlights had to be turned on. The hand throttle had to be released. The foot had to be freed from beneath the accelerator.

  I stripped and walked into the water. The water was cold. The night was black, and the mud banks under my feet suddenly gave sharply away. I kept my feet, walking directly toward where the car had gone under. I slid abruptly down the slimy, steep bank to my chin. I took another step and went under. Holding my breath, I fought toward the car, smashed into it with my face against steel. It was deep. I hauled myself down fast to the dashboard, found the headlight knob, yanked it out. The lights didn’t come on; shorted out. But I had that much accomplished. Then I released the hand throttle.

  I couldn’t stay under any longer. Out of breath, I fought for the surface, came up overly conscious of the possibilities of alligators in the water now.

  I didn’t want to go down there again. I had to. I took another deep breath, and dove. I caught some of the convertible top, and pulled myself down to the car seat. She was still jammed the way I’d fixed her. I located her foot under the gas pedal, braced myself, and tore it free.

  When I came up, a car’s headlights had brightened the night, moving slowly along the canal roadway. I ducked into the water again, waiting. When I came up, the car had passed. I swam for the bank, crawled up on the mud and lay there.

  The sensation of being trapped was very bad now. Of what we had done. Of what I was doing. There was a moment of realization of how life had been before I’d met Shirley Angela, and I lay there on the muddy bank, and began to laugh. The laughter was bad, and it stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

  I got sick.

  Finally I lay there on the bank, panting. My head ached. The whole thing was an impossible business. But it had happened. And it had only begun happening. All I’d accomplished was to take care of one little point that wasn’t even supposed to have happened. A tiny flaw. A diseased speck in what lay ahead.

  I got down into the water again and scrubbed the mud and scum away, then came up the bank and dressed.

  After that I went over the ground carefully, wishing I had a flashlight, but making what moonlight there was do. I smoothed out my footprints, and obliterated the tire tracks enough so they wouldn’t be noticed, but would still be there.

  Then I started down the road.

  I’d taken maybe a hundred paces, when I remembered the blanket.

  I ran back. I couldn’t find the place where I’d hidden it. I couldn’t even find the place where the convertible had gone over into the canal.

  Another car passed. I hid again, then went on looking. Finally I found the blanket. I rolled it up tightly, and stood there. I couldn’t figure what to do with it.

  Then I got to laughing again. For a minute or two, I couldn’t stop. It wasn’t really laughing. It was a kind of loud shouting. Then it stopped.

  I started down the road with the blanket rolled up under my arm. Mayda Lamphier’s death blood was soaked into the cloth. I didn’t know what to do with it.

  It was nutty. Everything was in order. Everything had to be in order all the way down the line. Except for this damned blanket.

  I couldn’t burn it. I couldn’t tear it to shreds, and float the stuff away on the wind. If I threw it into the canal, somebody would find it. A fisherman would find it, maybe. So for a moment I was blocked solid.

  There was only one thing to do. Bury it.

  I cut off the road, on the opposite side from the canal. The land was wooded with pine. I walked and stumbled through the woods, until I thought I was far enough in. It would look different in daylight. Maybe I was in somebody’s back yard.

  The hell with it. I dug with both hands. I scraped out a hole about four feet deep in the sandy, mucky soil, jammed the blanket down there, and covered it. I littered the spot with dried pine needles and leaves and ruck from surrounding ground, then hiked it back to the road.

  Once on the road again, I ran.

  Ten

  “He’s dead, Jack.”

  She was like a hunk of marble. The only thing that gave away what was going on inside her was her eyes. I didn’t say anything. I went into the bedroom and looked at him, there on the bed.

  His knees were buckled, with those big feet sticking out, and he was on his side. His hands were shaped into large claws, the te
ndons in shadowed relief. The hands were stretched out at arm’s length, toward the oxygen tanks. But his face really got me.

  From the neck up, he was choked with a kind of rich purple, blotched with blues and grays. The eyes were bugged right out of his head. It looked as if you would have to punch them back in order to close the lids. The mouth was stretched open as if he were screaming like an animal, with the purple lips drawn back away from the teeth as if they’d been stapled into his jaws.

  All that eagle-like arrogance was gone now.

  “He died a few minutes before you came, Jack.”

  Her voice was flat and there was fear.

  Well, I thought. This is what you wanted.

  The bright white light glared down on the room. The oxygen mask was on the bed. The TV set was still turned on with the sound off. A guy on the screen was sneaking down an alley. It was raining in the alley.

  I knew then that I hadn’t really wanted Victor to die. Only it was too late.

  Maybe it was all wrong. Maybe we’d gone too far. But I knew this, too—it couldn’t be undone. So now was the time to make it pay.

  I heard Shirley say something. She grabbed me with both arms. “Oh, Jack....”

  All I thought of was the money. I didn’t want it that way. Here she was, scared stiff, like a little kid, wanting me to comfort her, needing me, wanting me to say something to her so she wouldn’t feel so bad. And all I could think of was the money.

  It was strange. There were bright little moments of realization, knowing what was really happening. And with those brief interims came a hopeless trapped feeling I’d never had before.

  I thrust her away, holding her shoulders. Her face didn’t look too good.

  “We’ve got to have everything absolutely straight,” I said. “Are the volume controls turned up on the outside speakers?”

  “Jack. He kept crying for air. He lasted and lasted. I stood there and watched him. I taunted him, Jack. I was crazy—I must have been crazy. I just stood there. I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to move—just to see him die.”

  For a moment I thought she was going to crack.