by Gil Brewer
There was a tall, white-haired, overall-clad man out back, sawing pine logs on a small trestle. I stopped the car. He straightened slowly and held his back with one hand, grunting. Then he sighed and looked at me.
“Could you tell me where the Roberson place is?”
He grunted again, and rubbed his back.
“Now,” he said. “Pardon me. What was that?”
“The Roberson’s. They’re supposed to have a fishing camp up here. Yon know where it is?”
“Sure. Over there. Sam Roberson?”
“That’s right.”
“Over there. Follow the read as far as you can. When that quits, follow the path. Only cabin that side of the lake. Young Sam’s up there, though. Wife seen him breeze by just about daylight, this morning.”
“she did?”
“Uh-huh. Ain’t soon hide or hair of him out fishing, though. Should of been out by now, for sure.”
I stared at him, then said, “Thanks,” and started back toward the car. Behind the wheel, I looked once over there across the lake, then turned on the ignition and drove off.
• • •
Oaks and moss and tangled snarls of undergrowth hid the road now from the far side of the lake. The road dipped on into jungle, running down and then up over sloping hillocks. I drove very slowly through a short stretch of hub-high swamp, without miring, and came out on sand and curved around through denser jungle.
Then I saw the Ford.
It was parked in undergrowth, driven into it as far as it would go. The road just quit. Beyond the road, a path took over, vanishing into vines and greenery.
I got out and walked over to the Ford and had a look.
It was empty, and all I could think about was Eve. I guess maybe I was a little wild with it, and I started going over the Ford, checking everything inside.
I found the book, completely by accident, down under the front seat of the two-door sedan. It was The Medical Advisor.
I went quickly over the rest of the car. I began to get sick when I saw the woman’s shoe on the floor in back. The shoe was green alligator, and I recognized it as one of a pair of Eve’s.
I turned, running along the path. Vines and branches whipped at my face and shoulders, tore at my legs. Sam Roberson was a killer. And Eve was with him.
I broke out of the path into well-mowed lawn, sun beating down on a large cabin close up against the woods. The sun was hot and bright, but that place looked somehow bleak and peaceful. The lawn was mowed as well as any lawn in the smartest residential section of the city. It was trimmed clear to the shore of the lake, where a thin stretch of white sand gleamed between the grass and the water. Another shack stood down by the water’s edge and a boat bobbed, tied to an ancient wooden pier.
I crossed the lawn swiftly, and stepped up the stairs onto the porch of the cabin. Young Sam Roberson was in there, sweeping out the front room. He had the door propped open with a brick and he looked up and saw me and grinned.
“Hello, there,” he said. “What you doing ‘way out here?”
I swallowed and stepped inside. The dust was thick. He leaned on the broom. He was wearing a pair of khaki shorts and acting fine, only I saw the glimmer behind his eyes—the tight glimmer of confusion. He was a case. Sometimes you don’t know how to deal with a case.
“Just sweeping up,” he said, “cleaning up for the folks. They couldn’t make it up here till tonight. Thought I’d get an early start.” He paused, having got that bit off his chest, then said off-handedly. “They tell you I came up?”
He was talking too much, and he knew it.
“Yes,” I said. “Your mother said you’d brought their luggage up here.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment.
Then he said, “That’s right. How about a Coke? I brought Cokes and ice, too.”
“No. Thanks.”
“Better have one. They’re real cold. You look pretty warm.”
“Thanks, no.”
“Well—guess I’ll have one. Excuse me.”
He started for the kitchen, carrying the broom. I went along. He stopped in the kitchen doorway.
“The heck with it,” he said. “I’ll save it till I finish sweeping. Appreciate it more that way. This dust!”
“Sure is dusty.”
“Sure is.”
We looked at each other. He made a few swipes with the broom. He was swallowing a lot and he was thinking to beat the band. The sweat was popping out all over him, trickling down the sides of his face, out of his blond crew-cut. He kept making weak passes with the broom, missing the spots he should be sweeping.
“How come you’re up here?” he said. “Glad to have you. Get in some good fishing. The bass—” He let it drop.
“Lots of fish, eh?”
Looking at him, I tried to place him as the guy who made fly rods, and studied chemistry books in the peaceful seclusion of his bedroom—the football hero who had won a scholarship to U. of F.
He propped the broom against the wall, wiped his hands on his shorts and looked at me. He was a big guy, and he was in top condition, and he was letting me know it—just in case. His eyes were bloodshot, not at all like the clear whites they should have been, and had been early last evening. He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly.
“I found Jinny’s book in your car, Sam. She didn’t go to the library. You took her out there and killed her. Nothing’s going to work, Sam.”
He rammed the handkerchief into his back pocket and looked at me again. His face was without expression, his mouth relaxed.
“Where’s Eve Thayer?” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
His eyes began to move from one corner of the room to the other. The room was sparsely furnished, with tough, rustic furniture.
“How does a kid like you get this way?” I said.
“Kid like me?” His voice was very mild.
“If you’ve harmed her, I’m going to kill you, Sam—kid or no kid.”
He thrust his jaw out, like rope. His voice was hoarse and there was a tragic wildness in his face now.
“Nobody’s going to stop me,” he said quietly. There was a wet, sparkling look to his eyes. “I’m going to college, you hear? I’ve got to!” A muscle in his shoulder began to jump—jump—jump.
Then he jumped.
• • •
He came at me like a whip, dashed to the side and headed for the door, feet pounding in the cabin. I tackled him in the doorway and we sprawled out onto the porch. He was soaking wet, slippery as a greased rag. He began to curse steadily, scrabbling across the porch toward the brick that held the door open. That brick had probably been in his mind ever since I’d entered the cabin.
He got out from under me and got the brick and turned, bringing it down on my arm like a hammer. I rolled with the brick, and grabbed him by the throat and lifted. I slung him back across the porch and he lost the brick. I dove at him. He wasn’t there.
“You’re an old man, mister,” he said coldly.
I looked up. He came at me, leaping, both feet ramming for my face. I sat up into that, too, grabbing his feet. I caught the feet, slung them upward and he crashed onto his back.
He began to laugh, and then I saw the knife. The switch blade was in his hand, from one of his pockets, and he came at me across the porch, moving on his knees.
“I killed her,” he said. “She said it was our kid. We were going to do an abortion. It would’ve wrecked my chances at college to have a kid—and I got to go to college. I couldn’t tell my family. They’d never understand—they’d kill me. So we were going to do an abortion. But she got scared, see? The little bitch got scared.”
I listened and watched. The kid was out of his head.
“Got scared and said she’d tell about the Hounds.”
“Hounds?”
“Yeah, cop. You met ‘em last night. The Hounds, our club. You and your neat questions last night. You make me laugh, you poor bastards.
I’m head of The Hounds, see? I gave them orders to beat the hell out of you last night, snooping around. They don’t know about me killing that crazy little bitch—but they do like I say. I should’ve told them to give it to you good!”
“They were at Swanson’s?”
“Most of ‘em. lucky, wasn’t it? I phoned Tal and told him. He wanted his letter back, anyway. How’d you like it, huh, cop? You are a cop, aren’t you—well, it’s over for you now, old man.”
“What about U. of F. now?” I said quickly. “What about that scholarship.”
“I’ll have it—don’t worry.” He came at me, running on his knees, then dove, the knife held like a spear. He was completely out of his head. He had one aim in life, and he wasn’t going to fail at that.
I let him get in close with the knife, and I caught his wrist. I stood up, holding his arm with the knife out there, and looked down into his eyes. I bent him over backward, using my leg and knee. Then I looked into his eyes again.
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t.”
I brought his arm down across my knee and the knife clattered on the porch floor. He gave a kick and a twist, under me. I went up and I grabbed him and flung him. We both went over the porch railing of the cabin and hit the ground and he screamed.
He screamed again, groveling in the dirt.
“My arm!” he yelled. “My arm’s busted!”
I got up and looked down at him. His right arm had two elbows. You could see the bright white bloody bone.
“Where is she?” I said.
“In the boathouse—Don’t touch me.”
There was a sound of loudly revving engines. I looked up. A police car and Thayer’s Cadillac were coming around the lake. They vanished into the nearby jungle. They had obviously talked with Mrs. Roberson, decided on where I had headed.
“On your feet,” I said to him.
“Don’t touch me—you busted my damned arm.”
I grabbed him, yanked him to his feet and sent him reeling and stumbling down the slope of lawn toward the boathouse. He tried to turn, stumbling, so he could watch me. His mouth was open and he kept moaning. His arm looked very odd, the way it flopped.
“Reddick!”
It was Al Calvin’s voice. I looked over there and saw them coming across the lawn. Andy Leonard, with two uniformed cops, and Al Calvin. Edward Thayer lumbered along behind them.
“There he is!” Thayer shouted.
Calvin called my name again. He was waving a gun around. Andy’s jaw was swollen.
“Listen,” I said to Roberson. “You’re going to tell them, see? Tell them you killed that girl—tell them, Sam—quick.”
“I’m telling nothing.”
I took hold of his bad arm.
“Hold it right there,” Al Calvin said. “Hold it, Cliff.”
“Shut up, will you?” Andy said.
I could think only of Eve, and I moved Sam Sober-son’s arm and he told them. He told them rapidly, shouting it at them and cursing me at the same time. “I killed her,” he said “Now make him let go!”
“Where’s my wife?” Thayer said.
They all looked at me. The two uniformed cops didn’t know exactly what to do now. Thayer moved toward me, his face very red, but I didn’t hear what he was saying. I gave Roberson another shove down the slope.
They moved along with us. “I don’t know what he’s done to Eve—he said she’s in the boat house.”
We reached the boathouse and Roberson tripped and fell through the door onto the floor, moaning.
It was a shack, really, filled with fishing paraphernalia, and when the door swung inward, I saw Eve lying on a rolled-out mass of fish net.
Chapter Twenty-One
I MOVED quickly over to Eve, holding my breath a little, hoping she was all right. He had jammed a cork from one of the nets into her mouth and tied it around her face and head with a rope. Her hands and feet were tied and tangled in the fish net.
Andy Leonard and the rest of them stood bunched half inside the doorway.
“Are you going to believe him?” Thayer said. Then he said, “Eve—”
They held him there at the door and all I could see was the horror in Eve’s eyes.
I untied the gag. Her eyes were bright and sick with the kind of terror that would take time to go away. If he’d hurt her, I’d kill him.
“Eve,” I said. “Eve?”
She tried to speak but the tears welled in her eyes.
“It’s all right,” I said. “Everything’s all right now.”
She shivered and nodded and kept staring at him over there on the floor, as I released her from the tangle of net. She saw Thayer and the others in the doorway, but it was as if she did not see them. They seemed to mean nothing to her at all. Her pallor had me scared, and I didn’t like the way she kept trembling and trying to speak.
“Oh, Cliff,” she said finally. “Thank God, Cliff.”
We both stiffened as Roberson laughed a little, then moaned some more. He just lay there with his arm beside him—a young kid, staring at his arm with the two elbows.
Thayer suddenly was out of his head. His voice was strained and loud. “I’m not through with you two,” he said. “You hear that?”
Andy Leonard looked at him. “Quiet.”
Thayer paid no attention, staring across the room at Eve. I saw her look up at him from where she lay and I saw the change in her eyes, the look of disgust.
“I hope you got what you deserved,” Thayer said to her. “But it’s not half what you’re going to get—you hear?”
“Take him outside,” Andy said.
The two cops took hold of Thayer’s arm. He fought them, standing in the doorway, staring down at Eve. There was viciousness in his face.
Eve’s voice was very quiet. She looked up at him and there was nothing at all in her eyes now, not for him. “Edward,” she said quietly. “Can’t you see it doesn’t matter any more? Can’t you see I don’t care? Why don’t you just go away, Ed?”
For a moment he blustered wildly at her. The two cops still held his arms. His face was pale now, and all the things he wanted to say simply wouldn’t come out right. Then he was silent and she spoke again.
“It doesn’t even matter if you go away, Edward. The thing is, you just can’t reach me.” She didn’t smile, she didn’t say anything else, she just kept looking at him and then she looked away.
“I’ll reach you!” Thayer shouted. “Ruined—by hell, you’ll see!”
“Take him outside,” Andy said to the cops. “You go with him, Calvin.”
Thayer struggled and kept on yelling. They took him outside and Andy stood there by the door.
“We know about Thayer,” Andy said. “He talked an awful lot before we came up here, Cliff.”
I looked at Eve. “Did that kid hurt you in the car?”
She shook her head, watching me. I could feel a tense shuddering in her shoulders now and I hated to think of what she’d been through.
“No,” she said. Her voice was weak. “But he’s far from being a kid.”
She clutched at me as I knelt beside her, her fingers biting sharply into my arms. Then I felt her growing calmer.
“He tried,” she said. “He tried plenty, but I’m no kid, either, Cliff.”
Roberson moaned again.
“He—he just came right through the bedroom window. I was in bed.”
I helped her to her feet, conscious of Andy standing over there in the shadow of the doorway. Eve’s dress was ripped down the skirt and covered with dirt. Her soft hair was full of cobwebs, but otherwise she seemed unharmed. She stood there, looking over at Sam Roberson with a peculiar twist to her lips—as if she might like to spit.
“He had a knife,” she said. “He told me he’d kill me if I said anything. He panicked, Cliff. When you went and saw him at his house, he told me he knew then that he had to get me. He recognized you—and he knew I’d seen him. Time kept running short and he worried himself into it. He made
me dress, holding the knife against me.”
Andy cleared his throat.
Eve moved closer to me, watching Roberson. He was still looking at his arm. Nothing else seemed to matter to him.
“We were nearly up here when he stopped the car. I figured this is it. He made me get into the back seat and then he told me about Jinny Foster. How she was—what she was doing with all the high-school boys that were members of his club. Anyway, he said she was going to have a baby and claimed he was the father. They read up on abortions, trying to find out how. That was the book she had—but of course there was nothing in it. But after they planned all that, she wouldn’t let him try.”
I was looking at him now.
“She was going to tell on him. I guess he went crazy, kind of, because of some football scholarship, and everything else was piling up. So he picked her up and took her out to the beach. When he stopped the car, she ran. Then he killed her.” She paused. “He thought maybe having you beat up would stop you. Only he panicked and couldn’t wait. His life was ready to blow up in his face.”
Andy started to say something, but she spoke again.
“I should feel sorry for him, I guess.”
“Something’s got to be done about all those kids,” Andy said. “Jinny’s dead, and God knows what a jury will do to Roberson. But maybe if we get the town stirred up enough, get their parents feeling guilty enough, we can help the rest of them. They’re young,” he said, “they don’t have to spend their lives this crazy way.”
“Yeah,” I said, “yeah.” I was beyond caring much.
“Well just go away,” Eve said. “Won’t we, Cliff?”
She looked down at Roberson again, then moved into my arms.
“You sure he didn’t hurt you?” I asked again.
“No,” she said. “I’m fine, Cliff. Really.”
She began to cry very softly.
THE END
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