The Man Who Heard Too Much

by Forrest, Richard;

  Would they be there? Had they been following the freight just waiting for him to leave the boxcar and deliver himself into their hands? What had he done to be so punished? He had tried to work hard that day and give the Dunns their money’s worth. He had obviously done something wrong, but didn’t know what it was.

  It had happened at Mohawk, too.

  He pressed on toward the road, occasionally falling or stumbling, and again his breath came in choking gasps that sent more pain surging through his body.

  As he reached the road, he stopped. He knew that if he walked along the shoulder, he would eventually reach the home, but he was unsure how far he had come. He also knew that he looked terrible. He was used to people staring, but now with his bleeding … they might stop and do more things to him. He decided to walk on the far side of the road shoulder and stay hidden in the shadows.

  Martin Fowler stumbled through the pain-filled night, his eyes sporadically reflecting the glare of oncoming headlights as he continued toward the safety of the halfway house.

  In the rear downstairs hallway, Sara Bucknell hung up the phone. She leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. Calls to the local hospital, police, and doctors revealed that no one had seen Martin Fowler. Three weeks on the job and she had lost her first charge.

  Opening her eyes, she looked down the long passage at the heavy oak front door with its brass fittings and stained glass at the transom and sides. The Meegan Home for the Educable Mentally Exceptional might invoke memories of nineteenth-century strength and character, but that would be of little help in finding Martin.

  She wanted to avoid calling Ray Heath at the training school. Calling him would be tantamount to an admission of failure.

  The loud sound of the television in the main living room intruded on her consciousness. Four of the boys—no, men—were still watching a movie. She pushed away from the wall and peeked through the rear door into the living room. They were sitting in a row on the long couch before the television, and seemed entranced by the program. They would come to no harm, she thought. Perhaps they would stay up later than they should and watch the late show … but they could fend while she searched for Martin.

  Picking up the van keys, she slipped out the kitchen door and hurried to the parked vehicle.

  As she drove toward Horton, she was careful to observe both sides of the road. When the van reached the crossroads that comprised the major portion of the small town, she drove onto the apron of Dunn’s Service Station and stopped. The station was closed and dark, its pumps standing stiffly in the night as if guarding the premises.

  Old Mr. Dunn had told her over the phone that Martin had left at five-thirty. He would have ridden the bike down Main Street toward Route 20 and the halfway house. Sara put the van in gear and began to slowly retraced route.

  About two miles outside of town she noticed something pick up the gleam from her headlights. She braked the van and backed up.

  The shiny object that lay beyond the shoulder was difficult to make out from the road so she took a flashlight from the glove compartment and started up the hill toward the stand of pines at the crest.

  The bike lay on its side. The front fender had been dented and several spokes canted obscenely outside the wheel. Shining a small pool of light down on the wrecked bike, she decided that it had been forcibly ridden up the hill.

  She swiveled the light around the area and called out, “Martin! Martin! Are you here?”

  The wind in the trees answered and a train whistle sounded mournfully in the distance.

  “Martin!” she called again without response.

  Sara walked reluctantly back to the van. If she didn’t find Martin tonight, she would return to this area in the morning, when she could search properly in daylight. She was certain the wreck was Martin’s bike, but what had happened to him? She began to drive slowly toward Dawsonville, still inspecting shoulders for any sign of her missing charge.

  In Dawsonville, she turned the van around in the railroad station parking lot and began to make her way back to Meegan House.

  Four miles from Dawsonville something scurried from the side of the road into the brush, away from the illumination of her headlights. She braked, immediately took out the flashlight again, and stepped from the vehicle, shining the light toward the brush. “Martin, is that you?” No answer. “Martin, it’s Sara … Miss Bucknell.”

  A choking gasp came from the brush in front of her, and a figure, a near-apparition, rose from behind the protective covering and stumbled toward her.

  Sara involuntarily stepped back as the figure approached. “My God, Martin. What’s happened to you?”

  “Miss Bucknell … I … they …” He stumbled and would have fallen if he hadn’t clutched the van’s window frame.

  “You’ve been beaten,” she said.

  “Motorcycles … two of them … one with a chain … ruined my bike … I got on a train …”

  She put his arm over her shoulder, helped him around the side of the van, and levered him onto the seat. He lay his head back against the seat rest with his mouth half open, gasping for breath.

  She drove rapidly back toward Meegan House, glancing with concern at the injured man by her side. “Why did they do it?”

  “I don’t know. They just did.”

  “Two men on motorcycles … They were probably part of one of those sadistic bike gangs.”

  “A woman. One was a woman.”

  They were approaching the mansion, and Sara debated about continuing on to Horton and taking Martin to the small hospital located there. Ray Heath, the chief psychologist at the training school, had informed her when she took the job that they had run into difficulty with the citizens of Horton over establishing the halfway house. Petitions had been signed, and so-called concerned citizens had objected to the location of what they termed “a home for dummies” in their fair city.

  Martin’s respiration seemed to be returning to normal. She would examine him fully at the house before calling for medical aid. It was too early in the home’s history to involve local law and medical officials unless it was absolutely essential.

  Except for the still flickering television set in the living room, the mansion’s downstairs was empty. Since Martin’s quarters upstairs were shared with another man, she helped him into her room located at the rear of the first floor.

  He fell across the bed when she released him.

  Sara turned Martin over on the bed, adjusting his head comfortably on the pillow, and then removed his heavy brogans. His shirt was caked with dried blood, and in order to remove it, she had to cut it into strips and peel it off his body. She brought in a basin of warm water from the bathroom and pulled her large first-aid kit from under the bed.

  When she had bathed his chest and upper torso with warm water mixed with an antiseptic solution, she found the slashing flesh wound across his shoulder.

  The bullet had passed completely across the shoulder, leaving a gaping bloody gully.

  She applied more antiseptic and dressed the wound carefully. When the bullet wound was firmly bandaged she began to administer to his cut and ravaged face. She winced as she bathed him. He had suffered a cruel beating.

  She stepped back thoughtfully. Martin needed medical aid. The wounds might heal with her first aid, but the possibility of infection was too strong to be denied. She turned from the wounded man asleep on the bed and walked back into the hallway to the telephone. A half-page of typewriter paper with a dozen names and phone numbers was Scotch-taped over the phone. She ran her fingers down the list until she found the one she wanted:

  “Dr. D. Strickland, Horton Hospital, Tel—388-3882.”

  Sara dialed the number and waited while the hospital operator paged Dr. Strickland.

  “Strickland here,” said a laconic voice.

  “I’m Sara Bucknell, doctor. I’m the resident director at Meegan House and one of my charges is hurt.”

  “Get him to the Emergency Room. How
is he hurt?”

  “Beaten.”

  “Any fractures?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  She detected an audible sigh on the other end of the line. “Meegan House, isn’t that the Victorian monstrosity on the Pike?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was about to go home. I live a couple of miles past you in that small red A-frame off the road. Suppose I stop in on my way home? Say twenty minutes?”

  “That would be fine. Thank you.”

  She gave a start as she opened the massive oak front door. The bearded man on the stoop holding a medical bag was her age.

  “Dr. Strickland?” she asked tentatively.

  “No. Jack the Ripper. I just found this medical bag on the front walk. Where’s the patient?”

  She led him to the rear bedroom, and his facetiousness faded as he bent over the sleeping Martin. After a few minutes he turned to open his bag. “Someone did a number on this guy. One of your other charges?” He took a disposable syringe from his bag and prepared to inject Martin with an antibiotic.

  “No. No one here. I found him by the side of the road. He mumbled something about people on motorcycles.”

  “Uh huh.” He deftly flicked the needle into Martin. “That’s a gunshot wound on his shoulder.”

  “I thought it was.”

  He bent back over Martin and cleansed the wounds again and began to bandage. “I’ll have to call the gendarmes.”

  “I hate to see this get into the newspapers. The superintendent of the training school told me that they had a terrible time with the local people when they opened Meegan. We’d like to keep a low profile.”

  “Maybe he was robbing banks and you’re harboring an arch criminal.”

  “Come on, Dr. Strickland.”

  “Call me Don. No banks?”

  “Not even a small liquor store.”

  “A couple of transient sadists?”

  “That’s what I think.”

  He finished working on Martin and turned to her. Their eyes met and locked. Sara felt a spark between them.

  “You ought to see it around here during deer hunting season,” Strickland continued. “If I had to report every gunshot wound, I’d be up to my gluteus maximus in paperwork.” He smiled his ingenuous grin again. “Of course I get a lot of free venison that way.”

  “I can offer you a peanut butter sandwich.”

  “How about dinner on Saturday?”

  “I owe you one.”

  “Dinner or a favor?”

  “Both,” she replied.

  “I know a local steakhouse that mixes a mean drink.”

  Sara nodded. “That would be fine. Will Martin be all right?”

  “God, yes. He’ll be sore as hell in the morning, but we’ve stopped infection, I think. Look at the musculature on that guy. They must major in body building at that school.” He closed his bag. “Keep an eye open for fever and give me a call at the Emergency Room in the morning.”

  “I really appreciate your coming.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get my bill. Saturday?”

  “Sixish.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  After she escorted Strickland to the front door, Sara returned to the bedroom and looked down at Martin. She felt a wave of compassion for him. Awake, his features were a shade too expressionless to be handsome, but asleep he was sweetly attractive.

  Of course all her charges were fairly normal in outward appearance. It was only after prolonged conversation that you discovered that they reacted as a ten- or twelve-year-old might.

  Such vulnerable men. She was deeply angered with those who had tortured Martin.

  Sara Bucknell sank into the lone easy chair near the bed and lit a low night-light. She would keep the vigil.

  “This is Sara Bucknell, Mr. Dunn. Martin is ill today and won’t be able to come to the station.”

  “He don’t get his ass down here, he don’t have a job.”

  “He really can’t come in today, sir. He … he had an accident on the way home last night.”

  “His leg broke?”

  “No, but he’s banged up a bit.”

  “Get him in here.”

  “I really can’t. Perhaps tomorrow.”

  “Then I got to get someone else. My arthritis won’t allow me to pump gas, and Junior is busy in the service end. I got to have someone in here … now. How ’bout another of those dummies you have up there?”

  “They aren’t dummies, Mr. Dunn. They are educable.”

  “I don’t care what they are … get someone in here or Martin’s out of a job.”

  The phone clicked dead in Sara’s hand. She slowly hung up and listened for a moment to the creaking sounds of the large, now almost empty house. The others had left for work, and none would return until four. Martin had fallen back into a deep sleep after she had fed him soup early that morning. He would probably sleep the day through.

  Jobs in Horton for her clients were hard to find: If Martin lost the service station job, he might have to return to the training school. There was only one thing to do.

  Sara walked back to her bedroom to change into jeans and sneakers.

  “You!”

  The service station owner’s mouth gaped open to reveal a chasm where two teeth had once resided.

  “Why not,” Sara said. “I’ll fill in for a day or two until Martin’s better. Fair enough?”

  “You ever pump before?”

  “Most of the stations I’ve stopped at are self-service. I’ve pumped my share of gasoline.”

  “Minimum wage is all you get.”

  She forced her best student-teacher smile to her face. “That’s all I expect.”

  By the end of the first hour Sara realized that every time she bent under the hood of a car, Dunn Junior was staring lasciviously out of the service bay at her rump. She quickly straightened and turned. He was leering at her. Their eyes met until he waved and turned back to finish a lube job.

  By the end of the second hour he was periodically sauntering over to help her service cars.

  Sara accepted a Canadian twenty for a fill-up. Junior was standing nearby. “What’s the arbitrage on Canadian dollars?” she asked him.

  “Huh?”

  “The arbitrage … the difference?”

  “You mean how much we give them for it?”

  “That’s the general idea.”

  “Ten percent. Can you figure that?”

  “I’ll manage.” She quickly made change and the car drove off.

  “I’ll fill your grease pit any time you like, doll.” Junior’s mouth was partly agape with a large band of saliva clinging to the corner.

  Sara looked at him steadily. “Oh, really?”

  “You talk funny, you know that? You talk like you’re from one of those fancy girls’ schools.”

  “I’ll try and keep it under control.”

  “You wanna mess around?”

  Sara looked directly at him. “Don’t hit on me, asshole, or I’ll crack you one.”

  Junior’s mouth gaped open further. It was remarkable how closely father and son resembled each other, she thought as he returned sullenly to the service bay.

  A dark sedan pulled alongside the pumps and Sara went over to the driver’s window. “Yes?” she asked as she leaned toward the open window and found herself staring at a redheaded woman with the most incredible violet gray eyes.

  “I’m looking for someone. I was here yesterday, and there was a young man named Martin Fowler here. Do you know where he is?”

  “Did he do something wrong?” Sara asked.

  The redhead laughed. “Good Lord, no. I would just like to find him.”

  “Perhaps I can help you?”

  “I left something here yesterday and I thought he might know where it is.”

  “Oh, what is that?”

  The woman hesitated. Their eyes met in direct contact. “Nothing really important. A small item, a pen, but it had a sentimental value.
I must have left it on the clipboard when I signed the credit card slip.”

  “I’ll ask in the office.”

  “Don’t bother.” The redheaded woman turned the ignition and the engine started.

  “He should be back to work in a day or two.”

  “A day or two … thank you.” The dark sedan drove off the apron and turned down Main Street. Sara watched until it was out of sight.

  Chapter Four

  Martin Fowler’s eyes snapped open. For an instant he smiled with the thought that he was back in the familiar surroundings of his small room at the training school. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light that seeped through the drawn curtains he slowly realized that he was in a strange place.

  Where was he?

  He had a vague, dreamlike remembrance of stumbling along the road’s shoulder. A car … a van … had stopped, and he had been helped inside. It was Miss Bucknell. He was sure of it.

  As he sat up in bed, he winced at the stinging pain that shot across his shoulder blades. He inched his way erect, slowly. The room was slightly familiar. He had seen this room briefly through an open door. Yes, it was Miss Bucknell’s room, and he was in her bed at the halfway house.

  He became aware of the bandages and ointment that covered his wound and bruises. She had taken care of him, undressed and washed him.

  The fear returned.

  It was not fear of physical abuse or a beating. He had suffered that too many times at the training school—not from the staff, but from some of the charges whose physical bodies and strength were those of adults, but whose mental capacities were of small and unruly children, and who vented great anger at being thwarted at the most trivial incident.

  The unknown and unprovoked nature of the onslaught frightened him. He had learned to avoid attacks at school by the simple expedient of staying away from those who were violently inclined, but yesterday’s incident was devoid of reason.

  The school was his sanctuary, his home, and he yearned to return to its safety and security.

  A slight squeak.

  His body tensed and again the bruises signaled his battered body of their location.

  Footsteps sounded in the downstairs hall near the stairs.