Death Trap

by John D. MacDonald

  “If you aren’t off my porch in ten seconds, young man, I’m going to call the police.”

  “I was told you could help me, Mrs. Hemsold.”

  “Help you? Help you what?”

  I talked rapidly. “I know I could go to Mrs. Paulson, but I’m afraid this is the kind of thing that would upset her.”

  “What would upset Myra Paulson?”

  “I was told you are a friend and a good neighbor of theirs, Mrs. Hemsold. I know you are a decent and honest woman, Mrs. Hemsold, and you would want to see justice done.”

  “I always try to do the right thing, young man. And I do not care to carry on a conversation with you. I saw you with her, carrying on with her. And you can stop beating around the bush. What is it you want?”

  I took the gamble. In another moment she was going to slam the door again. “I want to ask you about Nancy Paulson’s trouble.”

  “Trouble? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I could hardly believe I’d drawn a blank. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hemsold. I guess you never heard about it.”

  “Oh! I know what you mean. That trouble. Land, that was, let me see, seven years ago.”

  “Do we have to talk through the door? I assure you I’m an honest and reliable person.”

  “Why shoud I let you in my house? And anyway, what does that trouble have to do with you?”

  “I’m not very good at making speeches, Mrs. Hemsold. I know that everybody is convinced Alister Landy is guilty. But we all owe a debt to society to try to trace down and eliminate every last shred of doubt. That’s the Christian thing to do.”

  “I don’t— Oh, now I see, but that is ridiculous! Do you mean to say that you think the same person could have been responsible? Heavens above, young man, you must be out of your mind.”

  “But don’t you see that I can’t know how ridiculous it is until I get the story from somebody who really knows?”

  I saw the war between moral indignation, and the desire of a lonely old woman to gossip. It was more skirmish than war. The door closed. The chain rattled and then it swung wide. “You might as well come in. My duty, as I see it, is to keep you from spreading malicious rumors about that sweet child. Now that you’re in, you might as well come all the way in and sit down.”

  The old fashioned living-room was spotless. The wood gleamed with oil, wax and many polishings. There was a great abundance of embroidery and needlepoint. She sat in the rocker facing me.

  “I want you to understand,” I said, “this is painful to me. I thought a long time before imposing on you. I assure you that I—”

  “Nancy is a lovely child and I wouldn’t have her hurt for the world. I’ll tell you about it so that it won’t have to go any farther. You’ll see how ridiculous your ideas are. I’ll never understand how two children of the same parents raised the same way can be so different. Jane Ann was trash. No good at all. Oh, they want to cover that all up now and forget it, but I could tell you some things if I had a mind to. But I’m not one to gossip about my neighbors. I’ve prayed for Jane Ann’s soul. Different as night and day, those two girls. Nancy sings in the church, you know. Mr. Hemsold, before he passed away, was a deacon. He was in the lumber business. I hope, wherever he is, he doesn’t look down often and see me having to rent part of the lovely house he built for me, just to make ends meet. Nancy has such a clear, lovely voice. It’s like an angel singing. You never heard the like. She’s always been a more delicate child than Jane Ann was. Land, you could tell that just by looking at the two of them. It doesn’t seem fair that it should have been Nancy to have that trouble; but when you think about it I guess it’s better she had that trouble than have happen to her what happened to Jane Ann; but I’m willing to say right here and now that Jane Ann was begging for what happened to her. She should have known some men are just beasts that happen to walk on their hind legs. This trouble was all hushed up, you know, and very few people ever heard about it, and some of them are dead, God rest their souls. It was a terrible, terrible thing and many is the afternoon Myra Paulson was over here sitting right there on the couch where you’re sitting, crying her eyes out about it because the poor child was only eleven. It’s a terrible thing to happen to a poor little child and it is God’s blessing she didn’t lose her mind over it—Nancy, I mean. It was on a Labor Day week end. Dick Paulson and Billy Mackin had been working hard that summer building a camp together up at Morgan’s Lake. They had some of the local people up there working on it too, but Dick and Billy got away every chance they had and pitched in. Labor Day is a time, you know, when a lot of the city riffraff get into their old cars and go up to the lakes. When she was tiny Nancy was a great one for wandering off by herself and finding things like flowers and berries and bird feathers and bringing them back for a kind of collection she had. Seven years ago that west shore of the lake wasn’t built up near as much as it is now. I hear it’s getting too built up, with camps practically one on top of the other, but that’s neither here nor there. Nancy wandered off that day and nobody thought too much about it on account of she was always a quiet child and she could amuse herself and she spent a lot of time alone. Well, she didn’t come back for lunch and then Dick and Myra were annoyed and then they got worried. I can tell you that by late afternoon there were an awful lot of folks out tramping through the woods, looking for her and calling out her name. They found her two miles from the camp, back toward the hills, walking around just like she was walking in her sleep. Her clothes were all tore and her throat was bruised something terrible. She didn’t make out she could recognize her own people, and she couldn’t talk or even cry. They knew it was some man did it, and the poor child was just scared witless. The doctors said she’d been choked unconscious and left for dead, and they found it hadn’t happened to her. You know. Like maybe the man heard a noise and got scared off or something. But as far as the effect on her is concerned, the worst might just as well have happened. She’d been such a merry little thing, and it was like she went under a cloud. She lost a whole semester of school, but she made that up. But you know, she wasn’t the same child any more. She turned out scary. The Paulsons wanted it all hushed up, so they put her in a sort of a rest home way over the other side of Warrentown and told everybody she was off visiting Myra’s sister but some of us were let in on the true story. The police worked quiet, and they investigated all kinds of drunks and vagrants they picked up in the lake country, but they couldn’t find the man who did it. She’s a lovely, lovely girl now; but it did make a cloud for her to live under. It is purely God’s blessing that the terror drove all the memory of it right out of her mind. But even so, it left its mark. So you can see, young man, that was a long time ago and a long ways from here that it happened. Anybody who tries to say it was the same man attacked both the Paulson girls is way out of their head, and you can take that for gospel. I don’t agree with what you’re trying to do, and I didn’t want you here in my house, but I felt it was my bounden duty to tell you the truth so you wouldn’t go hollering off on the wrong track.”

  “I certainly appreciate your courtesy, Mrs. Hemsold.”

  “Nancy is a lovely child and we all wish her all the best in life. I, for one, feel that what happened to Jane Ann was for the best. Had she lived, she would have given Dick and Myra nothing but heartbreak for the rest of their lives. Now they’ve got one lovely daughter left, and they can be proud of her, believe me. I’m not one to make any guesses without good reason, but I can see what’s ahead for that girl.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She made a little smacking sound with her lips and looked at me with great satisfaction. “Fate moves in mysterious ways, young man, and when you get older you’ll begin to see how there’s a pattern in everything. I don’t know if you’ve seen Angela Mackin over to the store or if you’d know who she was if you saw her. But if you saw her, you wouldn’t forget her in a hurry. That woman is walking death, believe me. She hasn’t got long to go, and there’s some sa
y she doesn’t know it, but I’d wager she’s got a pretty good idea. She and Billy never had any children, and I guess now Billy is glad they didn’t, even though he wanted them so bad. There’s some who hold to the old fashioned ways, but I say the world is changing day by day and it’s up to us to change right along with it. You mark my words, young man, there’s going to be a wedding and I say Billy shouldn’t wait over six months after Angela is in her grave. Nancy’ll be nineteen soon and if I ever saw two people that need each other and are right for each other, those are the two. Nancy needs love and understanding and tenderness, and Billy is going to need a young and loving and pretty wife so’s he can forget watching Angela go down hill all these long months. It’ll be a good thing all around. Nancy can stay right in the neighborhood, practically next door, and that’ll be so much easier on her people than if she were to marry and go away and leave them all alone. Maybe some would call it sinful for me to talk this way with Angela not even in her coffin yet, but a body has to face up to facts and do the best they can. Dick Paulson’s heart is in terrible bad shape and it would be a tragedy if Nancy were to go away now. You know, Billy Mackin even comes over and does Dick’s yard work for him, and he hasn’t got time left to take decent care of his own yard. I can see the handwriting on the wall and it’s going to work out for the best. Mr. Hemsold was eleven years older than me, and I must say we had a very happy life together until he died in nineteen thirty-eight on Friday the thirteenth at quarter to eight in the morning. I called him for breakfast and he always came down those front stairs there to get the paper and take it out to the kitchen. I heard the stairs squeaking and then there was all the thumping and I ran in and he was right there near that mat you can see from where you’re sitting. Dr. Farbon said it was a stroke and he never felt a thing, and you could well believe it from the peaceful look on his face. He left everything in perfect order, and I guess he died thinking I’d be well fixed for the rest of my life but he didn’t know how prices were going to go up out of sight. I think a husband should be older, and Billy will be a good steady husband for Nancy, better than some dreamy boy who thinks the world owes him a living. And, you know, I think Nancy will be happy to marry him. Don’t you get the idea they’ve been making up to each other or anything. Billy is too fine a young man to try and fiddle-de-dee with Angela dying on his hands. Nancy acts scairt of all men, but on account of Billy being such a good friend and knowing him so long, she’ll be easier with him than with anybody.”

  “Has anybody mentioned it, or are you just guessing?”

  She looked as if I had insulted her. “Guessing! When you get older you begin to see the pattern in things. Nobody has come right out and said it would happen, but I’ve got ears and eyes. Many a day Myra stops over and we have tea. Mr. Hemsold was born in Southampton, England, and he had tea every living day of his life and he taught me to like it too. From what she’s said, and understand she didn’t say anything right out, Dick has been thinking on Billy being a good match for Nancy later on. Now let me tell you I’ve known Dick Paulson since the time he used to deliver groceries right here to this same house, back when he was a raggedy, solemn little boy right down off the farm over near Bluebird after his folks died of the typhoid. That was back when it was Cal White’s market, and I bet Cal had no idea of Dickie Paulson taking over the place and a lot of other things besides. And I can tell you one thing about Dick. Anything he sets his mind to, it comes true sooner or later, you mark my words.”

  She stood up abruptly. “I’ve done my Christian duty and you might as well go now, young man, or I’ll start saying things you’ll have no liking to hear. I hear the Landy woman has gone clean away from town but if you see her you can tell her for me and the other decent folks around here that she won’t be welcome if she tries to come back.”

  When I turned and tried to thank her she slammed the door. The porch light went off before I was down the steps. I walked slowly back to the Inn. Many things had fallen into place. I felt that I could understand Jane Ann a little more. She would have been nine when that happened to her sister. And all of a sudden her sister seemed to be getting all of the love and attention in the household. It would not be impossible for Jane Ann to have gotten some distorted idea of what had happened. And that could account for her waywardness, her experimentations. They had been not only a protest but a curious way to try to regain the love and attention that was all being given to the sister.

  I did not go into the Inn. I went around to get into my car. There was no outside light at the small parking area. Some light came through the back windows of the Inn. At first he was a shadow that detached itself from a dark car parked near mine.

  And then he was a breath in my face, tainted with whisky and vomit.

  “Still meddling around, you son of a bitch,” he said thickly.

  “You’re drunk, Quillan.”

  “Not too drunk, you bastard. You and Perry. Both bastards. He smells trouble. So he cuts himself loose. He fires me. Your fault, you big-mouth bastard. I think I’m going to kill you.”

  And if he had hit me with that first punch, hit me where he wanted to hit me, he might have killed me right then. I got my left arm up barely in time. His fist numbed my arm. I turned from the expected knee, and it caught me on the thigh, knocking me back against my car.

  He rushed me, and I tried to slip free. He caught me on the forehead with a wild swing. Liquor had dulled his reflexes. For a moment he was silhouetted against the light. I hit him as hard and as fast and as cleanly as I could, three blows to the face, right, left, right. I put meat into the last one. I’ve hit people that hard before. They’ve gone down. He rushed me again and I backed up fast, backed out from between the cars to where I had more room.

  He came heavily out into the open. I circled him slowly. There was the sound of our shoes on the gravel, our breathing, a distant sound of music. I hit him twice more, but not as hard, because I was trying to stay away from him. He did not try to hit back. At the second blow, his fingers slipped off my wrist before he could get a good grip. In the faint light the blood on his mouth looked black. I knew he wanted to get hold of me. And I knew I wouldn’t stand much chance if he did. Discretion said turn and run like hell. But it isn’t pretty to run from a man.

  “Kill you,” he said indistinctly.

  He dived for my legs. I skipped sideways and he rolled over and over. When he came up to his feet, I had slipped around behind him. I clasped my fists together and struck him on the nape of the neck as hard as I could. I expected him to go down again, but he whirled with agility I hadn’t expected, and I was too off balance to skitter back. He got my arm. I hit him twice around the eyes with my left fist, but he pulled me close, locked his arms around me, fists on the small of my back, his shoulder pressing against my throat.

  We were motionless for a moment, and then he increased the pressure. I heard the audible creak of my ribs. All the air was pushed out of my lungs. He bent me, and the sky grew darker, and I knew he was crazy enough to keep it up until my back snapped. I tried to get hold of his hair but it was too short. I got one hand up and around and down to his face. He tried to snuggle his face into my neck, but I got the tips of my first and second fingers into his nostrils and pulled up and back. The pressure didn’t cease. I pulled until I felt the sickening rip of tissue. He grunted with pain and the pressure went and I could breathe. As I sucked air in, he hit me. There was no sense of falling. I did not feel myself hit the ground, but I recovered almost at once. He was on me, knee like a keg smashing my stomach with his entire weight. There was enough light there so that when he stabbed at my eye with a thumbnail, I turned and took a gash on the side of my face. I knew he meant to blind me. I struck at his face. He locked his hands on my throat. I had an instant of time in which to tighten all the muscles of my throat. Had I not done so, the first violent pressure would have mashed my throat, killed me in that instant. I flailed my arms, writhed, tried to get enough leverage to buck and throw him off. But his
knee pinned me. My hand struck something, turned, curled around it. I pulled it free of the ground. The edge of the parking lot was marked by bricks set cornerwise into the ground and whitewashed.

  The sky had darkened again and I could not see him. I struck and felt the brick hit. I struck five times, and though I was trying to use all my strength, I felt as though my arm were a tube of cotton, the brick a sponge.

  The big hands turned slack without warning. He collapsed onto me. I felt his blood on my face. I had to wait until I could move. I pushed him off. He rolled onto his back. I sat up and buried my face against my knees. Each deep breath made a whistling sound. The left side of my face felt numb. When I tried to swallow, my throat felt full of those metal jacks little girls play games with. When I got up I wavered and went down to one knee and got up again. I found my lighter. I squatted beside him and lit it. His face was spoiled. Blood ran from his ear. I did not like the look of that. It was not a good thing. I tried to find his pulse. His wrist was too meaty. I put my ear on his chest. It sounded much too thin and fast and sharp. His heart sounded as if it were trying to peck its way out of his chest.

  By luck I managed to get to my room without being seen. I washed the blood off. I changed my suit and shirt. I put tape on the ragged gouge near my eye. There was no other mark. It seemed miraculous. I looked at a stranger in the mirror. I felt as if I were in seven pieces, and the man in the mirror looked calm. I got the revolver, took it out of the holster, put it and a box of shells in my side pocket. I went down to the phone booth in the back of the entrance hall. I found the number for Dr. Higel. I paused, changed my mind, called John Tennant first.

  “I’ve got no time to chat,” I said. “Quillan jumped me behind the Inn. Nobody saw it. I don’t know whether I killed him. I may have. Let Arma know.”

  “Have you called a doctor?”

  “I called you first.”

  “Call a doctor. Wait by Quillan until he comes. Turn yourself in. I’ll be there in fifty minutes.”