San Diego Lightfoot Sue

by Tom Reamy

  “Hello, Loreen. I’d like to see Robin, if I may.”

  Loreen chuckled. “He gave me strict orders to let no one in but the governor—right after Mrs. Newcastle left.”

  Miss Mahan grimaced. “I met her in the hall. Would you ask him? It’s important.”

  Loreen arose from her desk and went into the sheriffs private office. Miss Mahan felt that she and Robin were good friends. She had not only taught him, but his sister, Mary Ellen, and his little brother, Curtis, was a senior this year. She liked all of them and thought they liked her. Robin’s son was in the second grade and a little doll. She was looking forward to teaching him, too.

  Loreen came out of his office, grinning. “He said you could come in but I was to frisk you first.” Her smile wavered. “Try to cheer him up, Miss Mahan. It’s the first… murder we’ve had since he’s been in office, and it’s getting to him.”

  Miss Mahan nodded and went in. The sheriff sat hunched over his desk. His hair was mussed where he had been running his hand through it. There was a harried look on his face but he dredged up a thin smile for her.

  “You aren’t gonna give me trouble, too, are you?” he asked warily.

  “I ran into Rose in the hall,” she smiled back at him.

  He motioned her to a chair. “What’s the penalty for punching a civic leader in the nose?”

  “You should know that better than I.”

  He grunted. “Yeah.” He leaned back in the chair and stretched his long legs. “I can’t discuss Yvonne Wilkins, if that’s what you’re here for.”

  “That’s why I’m here. Don’t you think this secrecy is worse than the facts? People will be imagining all sorts of horrible things.”

  “I doubt if anything they could imagine would be worse than the actual facts, Miss Mahan. You’ll have to trust me. I have to do it this way.” He ran his fingers through his hair again. “I’m afraid I may be in over my head on this. There’s just me and five deputies for the whole county. And we haven’t anything to work on. Nothing.”

  “Where did they find her?”

  “Okay,” he sighed. “I’ll tell you this much. Yvonne went out yesterday afternoon in her father’s car to visit Linda Murray. When she didn’t come home last night, Mr. Wilkins called the Murrays and they said Yvonne left about six-thirty. He was afraid she’d had an accident in the snow, so he called me. We found her about three this morning out on the dirt road nearly to the old Weatherly place. She was in the car… dead. It’s been snowing for five days. There wasn’t a track of any kind and no fingerprints that didn’t belong. And that’s all you’re gonna worm out of me.”

  Miss Mahan had an idea. “Had she been… molested?”

  Robin looked at her as if he’d been betrayed. “Yes,” he said simply.

  “But,” she protested, “why the big mystery? I know it’s horrible, but it’s not likely to cause a… a panic.”

  He got up and paced around the office. “Miss Mahan, I can’t tell you any more.”

  “Is there more? Is there more than rape and murder?” She felt something like panic rising in her.

  Robin squatted in front of her, taking her hands in his. “If there’s anyone in town I’d tell, it would be you. You know that. I’ve loved you ever since I was fourteen years old. If you keep after me, I’ll tell you, so have a little pity on a friend and stop pushing.”

  She felt her eyes burning and motioned for him to get up. “Robin, you’re not playing fair.” She stood up and he held her coat for her. “You always were able to get around me. Okay, you win.”

  “Thank you, Miss Mahan,” he said genuinely relieved and kissed her on the forehead. She stopped in the hall and dabbed at her eyes.

  But I haven’t given up yet, she thought as she huddled in her coat on the way to Paul Sullivan’s office. The bell tinkled on the door and the nurse materialized from somewhere. “Miss Mahan. What are you doing out in this weather?”

  “I’d like to see the doctor, Elaine.” She hung her coat on the rack.

  “He’s with the little Archer girl now. She slipped on the snow and twisted her ankle.”

  “I’ll wait.” She sat and picked up a magazine without looking at it. Elaine Holliday had been one of her students. Who in town hadn’t, she wondered. Elaine wanted to talk about the murder as did Louise Archer when she emerged with her limping daughter, but Miss Mahan wasn’t in the mood for gossip and speculation. She marched into Dr. Sullivan’s sanctorium.

  “Hello, Paul,” she said before he could open his mouth. “I’ve just been to see Robin. He told me Yvonne had been raped but he wouldn’t tell me what the big mystery is. I know you’re what passes for the County Medical Examiner, so you know as much as he does. I’ve known you for fifty years and even thought at one time you might propose to me, but you didn’t. So don’t give me any kind of runaround. Tell me what happened to Yvonne.” She plopped into a chair and glared at him.

  He shook his head in dismay. “I thought I might propose to you at one time too, but right now is a good example of why I didn’t. You were so independent and bull-headed, you scared me to death.”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “You won’t like it.”

  “I don’t expect to.”

  “There’s no way I can ‘put it delicately,’ as they say.”

  “You don’t know high school kids. I doubt if you know anything indelicate that I haven’t heard from them.”

  “Even if I tell you everything I know about it, it’ll still be a mystery. It is to me.”

  “Quit stalling.”

  “Okay, you asked for it. And if you repeat this to anyone, I’ll wring your scrawny old neck.”

  “I won’t.”

  “All right. Yvonne was… how can I say it?… she was sexually mutilated. She was split open. Not cut—torn, ripped. As if someone had forced a two by four into her—probably something larger than that.”

  “Had they?” Miss Mahan felt her throat beginning to burn from the bile rising in it.

  “No. At least there was no evidence of it. No splinters, no soil, no foreign matter of any kind.”

  “My Lord,” she moaned. “How she must have suffered.”

  “Yes,” he said softly, “but only for a few seconds. She must have lost consciousness almost immediately. And she was dead long before they finished with her.”

  “They? What makes you think there was more than one?”

  “Are you sure you want to hear the rest of it?”

  “Yes,” she said, but she didn’t.

  “I said we found no foreign matter, but we found semen.”

  “Wasn’t that to be expected?”

  “Yes, I suppose. But not in such an amount.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We found nearly a hundred and fifty cc’s. There was probably even more. A lot of it had drained out onto the car seat.” His voice was dull.

  She shook her head in confusion. “A hundred and fifty cc’s?”

  “About a cup full.”

  She felt nauseous. “How much… how much…?”

  “The average male produces about two or three cc’s. Maybe four.”

  “Does that mean she was… what?… fifty times?”

  “And fifty different men.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Yes. I know. One of the deputies took it to Wichita to be analyzed. To see if it’s human.”

  “Human?”

  “Yes. We thought someone might…”

  She held up her hand. “You don’t need to go… go any further.” They sat for a while, not saying anything.

  After a bit he said, “You can see why Robin wanted to keep it quiet?”

  “Yes.” She shivered, wishing she had her coat even though the office was warm. “Is there any more?”

  He shook his head and slumped morosely deep in the chair. “No. Only that Robin is pretty sure she was… killed somewhere else and then taken out on the old road, because there was almost n
o blood in or around the car. How they ever drove so far out on that road in the snow is another mystery, although a minor one. The deputy was about to give up and turn around, and he had on snow chains.”

  Miss Mahan was late for her one o’clock class. The children hadn’t become unruly as they usually did, but were subdued and talking in hushed voices. A discussion of Silas Marner proved futile, so she told them to sit quietly and read. She didn’t feel anymore like classwork than they did. She noticed that Twilla’s eyes were bright with suppressed excitement. Well, she thought, I guess you can’t expect her to react like the others. She hardly knew Yvonne.

  It had stopped snowing by the time Mr. Choate circulated a memo that school would be closed Wednesday for the funeral. Apparently Robin had managed to keep a lid on knowledge of the rape. There was speculation on the subject, but she could tell it was only speculation.

  When she got home, she saw the Twilla journal lying beside the big chair in front of the cold fireplace. Strange, Twilla had hardly crossed her mind all day. She guessed it only proved how silly and stupid her Twilla-watching really was. She put the journal away in the library table drawer and decided that was enough of that nonsense.

  Tuesday, the 12th

  This morning I saw Twilla jab Alice May Turner in the thigh with a large darning needle.

  Miss Mahan stopped in the middle of a sentence and stared in disbelief. She walked slowly to Twilla’s desk, feeling every eye in the class following her. “What’s going on here?” she asked in a deathly quiet voice. Twilla looked up at her with such total incomprehension she wondered if she had imagined the whole thing. But she looked at Alice May and saw her mouth tight and trembling and the tears being held in her eyes only by surface tension.

  “What do you mean, Miss Mahan?” Twilla asked in a bewildered voice.

  “Why did you stick Alice May with a needle?”

  “Miss Mahan, I didn’t!”

  “I saw you.”

  “But I didn’t!” Twilla’s eyes were becoming damp as if she were about to cry in injured innocence.

  “Don’t bother to cry,” Miss Mahan said calmly. “I’m not impressed.”

  Twilla’s mouth tightened for the briefest instant. Miss Mahan turned to Alice May. “Did she jab you with a needle?”

  Alice May blinked and a tear rolled down each cheek. “No, ma’am,” she answered in a strained voice.

  “Then why are you crying?” Miss Mahan demanded.

  “I’m not crying,” Alice May insisted, wiping her face.

  “I think both of you had better come with me to Mr. Choate’s office.”

  Mr. Choate wouldn’t or, I guess, couldn’t do anything.

  They both lied their heads off, insisting that nothing happened. Twilla even had the gall to accuse me of spying on her and persecuting her. I think Mr. Choate believed me. He could hardly help it when Alice May began rubbing her thigh in the midst of her denials.

  Miss Mahan sent Twilla back to the room and kept Alice May in the hall. Alice May began to snuffle and wouldn’t look at her. “Alice May, dear,” she said patiently. “I saw what Twilla did. Why are you fibbing to me?”

  “I’m not!” she wailed softly.

  “Alice May, I don’t want any more of this nonsense!” Why on earth did Twilla do it, she wondered. Alice May was such a silly, harmless girl. Why would anyone want to hurt her?

  “Miss Mahan, I can’t tell you,” she sobbed.

  “Here.” Miss Mahan gave her a handkerchief. Alice May took it and rubbed at her red eyes. “Why can’t you tell me? What’s going on between you and Twilla?”

  “Nothing,” she sniffed.

  “Alice May. I promise to drop the whole subject if you’ll just tell me the truth.”

  Alice May finally looked at her. “Will you?”

  “Yes,” she groaned in exasperation.

  “Well, my… my giggling gets on her nerves.”

  “What?”

  “She told me if I didn’t stop, I’d be sorry.”

  “Why didn’t you pick up something and brain her with it?”

  Alice May’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Miss Mahan, I couldn’t do that!”

  “She didn’t mind hurting you, did she?”

  “I’m… I’m afraid of her. Everybody is.”

  “Why? What has she done?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing. I’m just afraid. You promise not to let her know I told you?”

  “I promise. Now, go to the restroom and wash your face.”

  Twilla kept watching me the rest of the period. I imagine she suspects Alice May spilled the beans. The other children were very quiet and expectant as if they thought Twilla and I would go at each other tooth and claw. I wonder who they would root for if we did.

  I’ll have to admit to a great deal of perverse pleasure in tarnishing Twilla’s reputation in the teachers’ lounge. I was a little surprised to find a few of the others had become somewhat disenchanted with her also. They didn’t have such a concrete example of viciousness as I had, but she was making them uncomfortable.

  I also discovered who Twilla’s romantic (if you can call it that) interest is since Carter flunked out.

  Leo Whittaker!

  I was never so shocked and disappointed in my life. An affair between a teacher and student is bad enough but—Leo! No wonder she was being quiet about it. I thought he acted a bit peculiar when we discussed Twilla, so I said bold as brass: “I wonder who she’s sleeping with?” He turned red and left the room, looking guilty as sin.

  I don’t know what to do about it. I’ve got to do something. But what? What? What? I can’t do anything to hurt Leo, because it’ll also hurt poor Lana.

  How could Leo be so stupid?

  Dark clouds hung oppressively low the morning of the funeral. They scudded across the sky so rapidly Miss Mahan got dizzy looking at them. She stood with the large group huddled against the cold outside the First Christian Church of Hawley, waiting for the formation of the procession to the County Line Cemetery. The services had drawn a capacity crowd, mostly from curiosity, she was afraid. The entire ninth grade was there, with the exception of Sammy Stocker, of course, and Twilla. Only two teachers were missing: Mrs. Bryson (first grade) who had the flu, and Leo Whittaker. Leo’s absence was peculiar because Lana was there, looking pale and beautifully pregnant. She was with Carter Redwine and his parents. Carter seems to be recovering nicely from his little misadventure, she thought.

  She spotted Paul Sullivan and crunched through the snow to his side. He saw her coming and frowned. “Hello, Paul. Did you get the report from Wichita?”

  “Do you think this is the place to discuss it?”

  “Why not? No one will overhear. Did you?”

  He sighed. “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  “It was human—although there were certain peculiarities.”

  “What peculiarities?”

  He cocked his eyes at her. “If I told you, would it mean anything?”

  She shrugged. “What else?”

  “Well, it all came from the same person—as far as they could tell. At least, there was nothing to indicate that it didn’t. Also all the sperm was the same age.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “The thought occurred to us that someone might be trying to create a grisly hoax. That someone might have… well… saved it up until they had that much.”

  “I get the picture,” she grimaced. She thought a moment. “Can’t they… ah… freeze it? Haven’t I read something about that?”

  “You can’t do it in your Frigidaire. If the person who did it had the knowledge and the laboratory equipment to do that… well… it’s as improbable as the other theories.”

  “Robin hasn’t learned anything yet?”

  “I don’t know. Some of us aren’t as nosy as others.” She smiled at him as she spotted Lana Whittaker moving toward the Redwine car. She began edging away. “Will you keep me posted?”

  “No.”

/>   “Thank you, Paul.” She caught up with Lana. “Hello, dear.”

  Lana started and turned, then smiled thinly. “Hello, Miss Mahan.”

  She exchanged greetings with Mr. and Mrs. Redwine and Carter as they entered their car. “Should you be out in this weather, Lana?”

  Lana shrugged. She looked a little haggard and her eyes were puffy. “I’ll be all right.”

  Miss Mahan took her arm. “Come on. My car is right here. Get in out of the cold and talk to me. We’ll have plenty of time before they get this mess untangled.” Lana went unprotesting and sat in the car staring straight ahead. Miss Mahan started the car and switched on the heater although it was still fairly warm. She turned and looked at Lana.

  “When you were in school,” she said quietly, “you came to me with all your problems. It made me feel a little like I had a daughter of my own.”

  Lana turned and looked at her with love and pain in her eyes. “I’m not a little girl anymore, Miss Mahan. I’m a married lady with a baby on the way. I should be able to handle my own problems.”

  “Where’s Leo?”

  Lana leaned back against the seat and put her fingers on the sides of her nose. “I don’t know,” she said simply, as if her tears had been used up. “He went out last night and I haven’t seen him since. I told my aunt and uncle he went to Liberal to buy some things for the baby.”

  “Did you call Robin? Maybe he had an accident.”

  “No. There was no accident. I thought so the first time.”

  “When was that?”

  “Last Friday night. He didn’t come in until after midnight. The same thing Saturday. He didn’t show up until dawn Monday and Tuesday. This time he didn’t come back at all.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing. He wouldn’t say anything. Miss Mahan, I know he still loves me; I can tell. He seems genuinely sorry and ashamed of what he’s doing, but he keeps… keeps doing it. I’ve tried to think who she might be, but I can’t imagine anyone. He’s so tired and worn out when he comes home, it would be funny if it… if it were happening to someone else.”

  “Do you still love him?”

  Lana smiled. “Oh, yes,” she said softly. “More than anything. I love him so much it…” she blushed, “… it gives me goosebumps. I was crazy about Leo even when we were in high school, but he was so wild he scared me to death. I thought… I thought he had changed.”