A Touch of Death (14 page)

I drove on, past the scattered dark houses at the edge of town, hoping there would be enough left in the tank to get back. We went around a curve and the lights were gone, swallowed up in the night behind us. I slowed. We crossed a wooden bridge where willows grew out over the roadside ditch. I slid to a stop.

“Wait right here,” I said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. And don’t show yourself on the road until you’re sure it’s

me. I’ll flip the lights up and down before I stop.”

“All right,” she said. She got out of the car.

There were no cars in sight. I made a fast U turn and

headed back.

I stopped in the pool of light in the driveway. The attendant came over. He was a big black-headed kid with a grin. “Fill ‘er up?” he asked, looking at me with faint curiosity. He knew it was the same car he’d just seen going past headed south.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s empty. Just lucky I noticed it before I got clear out of town.”

He shoved the nozzle in the tank. It was the automatic type that shuts itself off. He went around in front and checked the oil and water and started cleaning the windshield while the bell on the pump tinkled away the gallons. I could hear a radio yammering in the office. It sounded funny, like a cab dispatcher’s radio, cutting off, coming on, going off again. I couldn’t tell what it was saying.

The kid jerked his head toward the car’s license tags and said, “Lot of excitement up your way tonight.”

I could feel my mouth dry up. “Hows that?”

“Mrs. Butler again. You don’t happen to know her, do you?”

“No,” I said. “Why?”

“Just thought maybe you did, seeing as you’re from the same county. She’s got this whole end of the state in an uproar. With all the cops looking for her, she comes right back to her own house. Or at least they figure it must have been her. Some man with her, too, from the looks of it. They slugged a deputy sheriff and shackled him with his own handcuffs, and the house got afire some way”

“All this on the radio?” I asked. “I didn’t hear anything about it.”

He grinned. “You might say on the radio.” He jerked his head toward the office. “Police bands. Not supposed to have it, but back here off the highway they don’t say anything. Boy, the air’s really burnin’ tonight.”

“You say there’s a man with her?” I asked.

“Almost has to be, the way they figure it. Somebody slugged that deputy so hard he may not live. Broken skull. He’s still unconscious.”

I turned my face away in the pool of light and cupped my hands as I lit a cigarette. “That’s too bad,” I said.

“Yeah. They’re just hoping he comes out of it. Maybe he’ll be able to tell ‘em what happened. Somebody said they heard shots, too.”

“Sounds like a wild night,” I said.

“They’ll catch ‘em. They’re stopping everything on the highways. Roadblocks. Course, they don’t know what the man looks like, but they got a good description of her. They say she’s a dish. A real pin-up. You ever see her?”

“Not that I know of,” I said.

“I thought maybe, being from the same county—”

If he said that once more, my head would blow up like a hand grenade. “I don’t belong to the country club set,” I said. “I run a one-lung sawmill, and the only time I ever see any bankers is when they tell me my notes are overdue. How much I owe you?”

“Four-sixty,” he said.

I took a five out of my wallet, feeling the wonderful, hard outlines of the three keys through the leather. They were something you could touch. They were no dream you were chasing; you had them in your hand and could feel them.

A man lying unconscious somewhere with a broken skull—a man you didn’t know and had never seen except as a block of shadow a little darker than the night—didn’t really exist as long as you didn’t think about him. I felt the keys through the limp leather.

I thought of the cafe up the street. I hadn’t eaten anything for thirty-six hours; I was dead on my feet and needed coffee to keep going. I heard the cash register ring in the office, and then the radio cut in again with some coded signal that was like a finger pointing. There he is, it seemed to say.

He’s standing there in the night. We’re in the dark, watching him.

Eat?

Run. Keep going.

Nobody could eat with them looking at his back. When

we were safe in the apartment, that feeling of always being watched from behind would go away. Wouldn’t it?

Sure it would.

A car rolled in off the street and stopped on the other side of the pumps, and when I turned and looked at it I saw the state seal on the front door of a black Ford sedan and a man getting out dressed in gray whipcord with a Sam Browne belt and a gun holster with a flap on it. I looked at him and then slowly turned my head and stared out into the street, feeling exposed and skinless in the hot pool of light.

“Hey, Sammy,” he said, “how about a little service?”

Sammy came out of the office with my change. He grinned at the cop and said, “Boom-de-boom-boom. Keep your shirt on, Sergeant Friday.”

He handed me the change, and I had to turn to take it. I saw the cop come between the pumps and stand in front of the car, the impersonal face and the gray impersonal eyes turned toward me and toward it, gathering us up in that efficient, remorseless, and completely automatic glance that knew instantly and without conscious thought all there was to know about the outside of both of us, sifting the information, cataloguing it, and storing it away in the precise pigeonholes of his mind, all of this in one instant and without ever breaking off his good-natured kidding of Sammy.

He knew the car was from Madelon Butler’s county. The license plates would tell him that automatically. I saw him walk down the side of the car, still talking to Sammy, and glance carelessly in the windows, front and back. It was all right. He wouldn’t see anything. There wasn’t anything in the car except that small bag, which could be mine.

I remembered then, but there was nothing I could do except stand there and wait in an agony of suspense.

She had changed clothes in the car. What had she done with the pajamas and the robe? They were either in the bag or on the back seat in plain sight. I didn’t know. And I couldn’t see in from here.

He came on past the car, glanced idly at me once more, and went over to the Coke machine by the door.

I walked on rubbery legs around to the other side of the car, and as I got in I managed to shoot a glance into the back. There was nothing in sight. She had put them

in the bag. I was weak with relief.

“Come back again,” Sammy said.

“You bet.”

I drove off, feeling him there behind me. It was as if I

had eyes in the middle of my back.

I held the speed down while the lights faded behind me. They disappeared as I swung around the curve. I could see the bridge coming up. There were no other cars in sight, ahead or behind. I flipped the lights up on high beam and then down, and hit the brakes.

She came up quickly out of the shadows and climbed in. I shot the car ahead while she was closing the door. The speedometer climbed. We were away. Maybe we would make it. We were only a little over a hundred miles from Sanport now and steadily slipping farther through their fingers.

But behind us Diana James was dead. And if that deputy sheriff died of his fractured skull, I was a cop killer. Maybe you never could get far enough away from that. There might not be that much distance in the world.

We were almost there. Traffic lights were flashing amber along the boulevard. I looked at my watch. It was a quarter of three. I turned right on a crosstown artery before we got into the business district and went out toward the beach. It was hot and still, and I could feel the stickiness of high humidity. There were few cars on the streets. Newspaper trucks rumbled past, dropping piles of papers on corners.

There wasn’t time to pick one up now. The thing I had to do first was get her out of sight once and for all and ditch this car. Then I could relax.

“It’s only a few blocks more,” I said.

“That’s good,” she replied. “I’m tired. And I need a

drink. You do have something there, I hope?”

“Yes. But remember what I told you about the juice.”

“Oh,” she said impatiently, “don’t be an idiot.”

I turned left into a wide, palm-lined avenue. The apartment building was two blocks up. I slowed as we neared it, looking in through the wide glass doors. The foyer was deserted. There was slight chance we would meet anyone at this time in the morning.

I had to go on nearly another block to find a place to park. We got out. The street was quiet. I took the bag.

“If we meet anybody,” I said, “just don’t let him get a good look at your face. Be looking in your purse or something. There are a hundred apartments in the

building. Nobody knows more than half a dozen of the other people. Just act natural.”

“Of course,” she said. She was completely unconcerned.

We walked down to the doors, our heels clicking on the pavement. The foyer was empty, the doors of the self-service elevator open. We stepped in and I punched the button. When we got out on the third floor the corridor was deserted and silent. Our feet made no sound on the carpet. Number 303 was the second door. I took the key out of my pocket. The door opened silently and we went in.

I closed it very gently, and when it latched I could feel the tension draining out of me. We were safe now. We were invisible. That snarling and deadly hornet swarm of police was locked away on the other side of the door.

I flicked the wall switch. A shaded table lamp came on. The Venetian blinds were tightly closed. She looked around the living room as casually as visiting royalty inspecting the accommodations and then turned to me and smiled.

“Sanctuary,” she said, “in Grand Rapids modern. And now could I have a drink?”

“Is that all you’ve got to say?”

She shrugged. “If you insist. I’m very glad we got here. You were quite effective, Mr. Scarborough. Expensive, but effective.”

“Thank you, Your Highness. Don’t you ever worry about your neck at all?”

She stopped her inspection of the room to look at me, the large eyes devoid of any expression whatever. “Not publicly,” she said. Then she added, “I’ll take bourbon and plain water.”

If she wanted ice water, I thought, all she had to do was open a vein.

I nodded my head toward the doorway at the left of the living room. “Bath is in that hallway,” I said. “The bedroom is just beyond. Dining room and kitchen to the right.”

She raised her eyebrows. “The bedroom? Where are you going to sleep?”

She was running true to form, all right. I’d intended to turn the bedroom over to her, but she had already taken it for granted. The help could rustle up its own quarters.

“Oh,” I said, “I’ll just bed down on an old sweater outside your door and bark if I hear burglars.”

“You are clever,” she murmured. “You don’t mind, do you? I just wanted the situation clarified.”

“It is clarified. I won’t bother you. This is strictly business with me. You’re probably frigid, anyway. Aren’t you?”

The eyes were completely blank. “No ice,” she said.

“What?”

“The drink, dear. Remember?”

I went into the kitchen and got the bottle out of the cupboard. I mixed two drinks, making mine very short and weak. While I was out there I looked in the refrigerator to see if there was anything to eat. There was only an old piece of cheese. I could get something at the airport. But what about her?

The hell with her.

I took the drinks in. She was sitting on the sofa with her legs crossed and the dark skirt pulled down over her knees. She had long, lovely legs.

I took a sip of my drink and looked at my watch. I’d have to hurry and ditch that car so I could get back here before people were astir.

Something had been puzzling me, however, and I thought about it now. “Why do you suppose Diana James went up there?” I asked.

“It’s fairly obvious,” she said. “She had all your rapacious greediness for money. She read—or heard over the radio—that I had fled the country, and she was just hoping I hadn’t had time to pick it up when I ran. A sort of desperation try, you might call it.”

“I suppose so,” I said. “But why did you shoot her? Or do you ever need any particular reason?”

“I shot her because she set foot in my house,” she said simply. “She knew I would, of course, but she thought I was gone.”

I remembered the awful horror in her eyes when that light burst on her and she heard Madelon Butler call her Cynthia. She had known she was dead when she heard it.

“Why did you start that fire?”

“The house was mine,” she said coldly. “It belonged to my grandfather and my father, and I’m the only one of the family left alive. I’m sure no one can question my

right to burn it.”

“Except the insurance company.”

“Why?” she asked calmly. “They’ll never have to pay.

There is no one to pay it to.”

I thought of that. She was right. She no longer existed as Madelon Butler.

I was right, too; but I didn’t know the half of it.

It was fifteen miles out to the airport. The drink propped me up for a few minutes, but when it wore off I was more dead on my feet than ever. I wondered if I had ever slept. There was no traffic, however, and it didn’t take long.

I drove into the parking area. It was dark and no one was around. Before I got out I rubbed my handkerchief over the steering wheel and dash and the cigarette lighter. I left the keys in the ignition, and as I got out I smeared the door handle with the palm of my hand.

It would do. There was very little chance they’d ever connect us with this car. That blonde and her brother were in no position to report it. They’d keep their mouths shut. The car might eventually be stolen, with the keys left in it, and God knew where it would wind up. And even if the police did get on the trail of it and find it out here, they’d never know for sure whether we’d left it here as a blind or whether we’d actually taken a plane.

I walked back down the rows of cars and went into the main building. A few people waited for planes. The loud
speaker system was calling somebody’s name: Please come to the American Airlines desk. I looked at the clock. It was five minutes of four. I had plenty of time.