A Touch of Death (11 page)

I nodded to the blonde and Jack. “Just stand right where you are. When we’re gone you can start walking. Or you can have that Cadillac if you know how to start it

without the keys and don’t mind that it’s a little hot.”

“I’ll find you someday,” Jack said. “I’ll find you.”

“I’m in the book,” I said. I motioned for Madelon Butler

to get into the car.

As we crossed the culvert at the edge of the meadow I tossed the key out at the end of it without slowing down. I looked in the rear-view mirror, but I couldn’t see them. It was already too dark under the trees.

I flicked on the headlights and we went up the hill through the timber.

The lights of the country store and filling station were ahead of us. “Here’s where we hit the highway,” I said. “We’ll see a police car once in a while, but they won’t be looking for this car. Don’t pay any attention to them. They can’t see you in here.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she said.

I sailed the keys to the Cadillac into the roadside bushes, and in another minute or two we pulled onto the

pavement. In spite of what I’d told her, it was like walking into a cold shower.

I drove carefully, holding it down to forty or forty-five. Just a simple accident or being stopped for a traffic violation of some kind was all it would take to ruin us. I thought of how invisible a car was among all the hundreds of others until something happened to it, or the driver did something wrong, and then it was in the center of the stage with all the spotlights on it. When we came into the first town I turned over one street to keep out of the lights, and went through as if we were driving on eggshells.

I turned twice more, and we were back on the highway again. It was only thirty miles now.

It had been over twelve hours since she was supposed to have fled. They might not actually expect her to be stupid enough to come back, but they’d have at least one man covering the place as a matter of routine. Maybe there’d be more. The money still hadn’t been found. They wouldn’t be taking any chances.

Would he be in front? Or in back? Inside the house itself?

We had to park the car far enough away so they wouldn’t hear it or see the headlights. And still we couldn’t walk around on the streets.

“Is there another street or road in back of that one directly behind the house?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll show you where to turn. There are no street lights there, and it’s mostly vacant lots.”

She’d grown up in that house. I wondered how she felt about going back to it for the last time and knowing she’d never see it again if we got away. But whatever she felt, she kept it to herself. Then it occurred to me she had never seemed particularly bothered by the fact that her husband wasn’t around any more, either, or why he wasn’t. She wasn’t exactly the gushy type.

“Where did they find him?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” she said.

“You don’t know?” I asked unbelievingly.

“That’s right.” She appeared completely unconcerned. “You were the one who heard the news report. Remember?”

It just didn’t add up. I had to believe her. She sounded as if she were telling the truth, and she had no reason to lie about it now. And she hadn’t known that his car had been abandoned right in front of the James girl’s apartment, either. An odd thought struck me then. Had she really killed him? But that was stupid. She’d as much as admitted it. She was paying me $120,000 to get her out of there and hide her from the police. For what—a parking ticket?

“You don’t make much sense to me,” I said.

“Really?” She lit a cigarette, and for an instant the flame of the match lit up the still, intensely beautiful face.

“I wasn’t aware I was supposed to.”

“Did you kill Butler?” I asked.

“Perhaps you should read the terms of our contract

again. I recall nothing in it about submitting to an inquisition.”

“Have it your way,” I said. “I just work here.”

“An excellent appraisal of your status. Incidentally, I might say that you have done very well so far, with only one or two exceptions.”

“What exceptions?”

“In the first place, you should have killed them instead of turning them loose. They can describe you; And in the second place, you have thrown away the only key I have to the house. It was attached to the car keys.”

“We don’t need a house key,” I said. “We go in through one of the basement windows. And as far as their describing me, you know as well as I do they’re not going to the police. They can’t.”

“Yes. But has it occurred to you they might be captured

by the police?”

“Sure,” I said. “But it’s just a chance we have to take.”

“Needlessly.”

“All right. Needlessly. But I’m doing the job, and I’ll do

it my own way.”

She said nothing. We came up the grade out of the river bottom.

I’d had plenty of warning about her. But I didn’t realize it in time.

We were nearly there. I could see the glow of lights against the sky.

“Slowly,” she said. “We pass a cemetery on the right. And just beyond it there’s a road on the left. Turn there.”

In a moment I could see the evergreen hedge of the cemetery. Two cars were coming up behind us. I slowed and let them go by.

“Now,” she said. “On the left.”

I made the turn. It was a gravel road with a field off to the left beyond a fence. We passed a lighted house. A dog ran out and chased us, barking furiously. I cursed, feeling the tension build up inside me.

Coming back here like this with the police after her was insane, and I knew it. Suppose we ran into them? We might get away from them in the dark, but that wasn’t the thing. They’d know where we were, and all the roads in this end of the state would be bottled up before we could get out.

But there was nothing else to do. We had to have the keys to get into those boxes. Maybe, under ordinary circumstances, you could have them opened without the keys if you had plenty of time and absolutely foolproof identification. In her case it was utterly impossible. She’d rented them under a phony name, she was a fugitive, and the slightest irregularity or one suspicious move would

bring the whole thing down on top of us.

While I was on the subject, I thought of something else.

“Have you got any cash with you?” I asked. “Or at the

house, where you can get it?”

“Yes,” she said. “I have nearly a thousand dollars in my handbag.”

“Good,” I said. I didn’t ask why she was carrying around that much. It was obvious. She’d known she

might have to make a run for it someday, and she was ready.

We turned right and went up a slight grade with trees on both sides of the road. I was driving slowly, drawing a map of it in my mind. We might be in trouble when we came out. There were no houses, no lights. A cat ran across the road, its eyes shining.

“In the next block, where that power line crosses the road,” she said.

“Right.” I swung the car sharply around, facing back the way we had come, and backed off the road under the overhanging trees. I cut the motor and lights, and we sat still for a moment, letting our eyes become accustomed to the darkness.

We got out, and I gently closed the door. I was conscious of my shallow breathing and the fluttering in my stomach, the way it always was just before the opening kickoff of a football game. The night was overcast and still, the air thick with heat and the smell of dust.

I had changed into the white shirt again back at the camp, but I had on the coat to cover it. I turned the collar up to hide any gleam of white. The gun and flashlight were in the pockets. I looked at her. She was all right, except for her feet. I could see the faint blur of that white trim around her slippers. It couldn’t be helped.

I held her arm for another minute while we listened. There was no sound. “All right,” I whispered. “Let’s go.”

We cut across the lot, following the dark shafts of the power-line poles. There was a path of sorts, and we made no sound. In a minute or two we came out onto the next street, the one directly behind the house. I felt a sidewalk under my feet. There were no cars in sight.

She tugged at my arm. “This way,” she whispered. We hurried along the sidewalk, and then cut diagonally across the street. I knew where we were then. I could see the high, shadowy pile of the oleanders. Out the gate, cut left diagonally, half a block, I thought, writing it down in my mind in reverse, the way it would be coming back. I might be in a hurry. And I might be alone.

I eased the gate open, an inch at a time. We slipped through and stood in the dense shadow of the oleanders. I put my lips down next to her ear and whispered.

“Wait here. I want to see if there’s a car around anywhere.”

She nodded. I could see the faint blur of her face as it moved.

I slipped off across the lawn toward the dark mass of the house, cutting a little to the right to pass around the south side near the garage. Stopping beside the shrubs near the corner, I searched the driveway. It showed faintly white in the gloom. I could see no car.

Keeping on the grass to muffle any sound, I eased around the side of the house until I could see the front. There was no car here. The night was empty and silent except for the faint sound of music coming from somewhere across the huge expanse of front lawn and the street beyond it. It was a radio in some house on the other side of the street.

I remained motionless for a minute, thinking. They might be parked out on the street, sitting in a car and watching the drive. Or they still might have a man inside. We just had to chance it.

I started back. I came around the rear corner and past the back porch by the kitchen, moving silently on the grass. As I neared the break in the shadowy mass of the oleander hedge where the gate was, I could just make out the little blur of white at her feet. She was moving. She was coming slowly toward the house. I turned a little to meet her, watching the small bits of white fur move across the formless darkness of the lawn. Then they disappeared. They winked off, like a light going out.

I stopped, feeling my heart pound in my throat. She had passed behind something. But there wasn’t anything there. There couldn’t be. Now I could see them again. She had stopped too. I strained my eyes into the night. I could see nothing at all. Then the blur of white at her feet winked off again. Something was between us, and it was moving.

There was no way to warn her. I wanted to cry out to her to run, but I knew the stupidity of it. The man knew she was there; he could see her feet. But he didn’t know I was behind him. I was tense. My mouth was dry.

I could run. I could circle them, get behind them, and make it to the gate and the car.

I didn’t run. I couldn’t quit now. I started moving toward them, keyed up and scarcely breathing.

Then it happened. She had seen him, or heard him, or somehow sensed that he was there, and thought I was coming back. She whispered, “Here I am.” It was like a shout.

Light burst over her face and the upper part of her body. She wasn’t twelve feet away, exposed in the glare of the man’s flashlight like a floodlighted statue. I was coming up behind him, very fast and as silently as I could, pulling the gun from my pocket, when I heard her gasp. I could see him quite plainly, silhouetted against his own light. I raised the gun and swung.

“All right, Mrs. Butler,” he said. “Stand right where you are. You’re under ar—”

He grunted, and his arms jerked. The light fell out of his hand as he buckled back against me and then slid to the grass. I lunged for it and snapped it off. Night closed around us again, black as the bottom of a coal mine.

I was scared as I felt for him. Maybe I’d hit him too hard. I located an arm and fumbled at his wrist, trying to feel the pulse, but my hands were shaky and numb and I couldn’t tell. I put a hand on his chest. He was breathing normally. The fright began to leave me.

She was leaning over me in the darkness. “I thought it was you,” she whispered.

I didn’t answer. I was too busy thinking. What did we do with him? He was merely knocked out, and might come around at any time. To go on in the house and leave him lying here would be suicide. She’d have to go alone; I could stay here and watch him. But suppose there was another one inside?

We didn’t have all night. Every minute we stayed here made it more dangerous. I had to do something, and fast.

I reached down, took the gun out of his holster, and threw it over into the oleanders. As I did so I heard something rattle. It was metallic, something fastened to his belt. I had the answer then. Running a hand along the belt, I located them and took them off. They were handcuffs.

“Stay where you are,” I whispered to her.

Grabbing him by the shoulders, I dragged him across the grass into the deeper shadows under the hedge. I rolled him up against the bottom of a clump of oleanders, pulled his hands behind him, and shackled them together around a couple of the big stems. Then I took his handkerchief out of his pocket, wadded it into his mouth, took off his tie, and made it fast around his head to hold the handkerchief in. He was still out, as limp as a wet shirt. I knelt and listened to his breathing. He was all right.

I hurried back. Leaning close to her, I whispered, “We’ve got to get out of here fast. You won’t have time to change. So just throw some clothes in a bag when we get

inside.”

She nodded.

I led the way to the window where I’d gone in before. Pulling the screen back, I raised the sash and dropped in; then I helped her. We stood in darkness in the basement, listening. There was no sound except that of our own breathing in the hot, dead air.

“Where are those keys?” I whispered.

“In the kitchen.”

“All right. Let’s go.”

I flicked on the small flashlight and we went up the stairs. I was tense again, and wanting to get out. I felt like a wild animal reaching for the bait in a trap. We stepped into the kitchen. I cut the light, and we listened. There was dead silence. I tiptoed over to the other door and stared through the darkness of the dining room toward the front of the house. I could see only more empty blackness.