Beware the Young Stranger (4 page)

“I was hoping you might know the inside,” Rollins said. “You've got connections. You've made inquiries. You may know more about Keith in one respect than I do.”

“In respect to what?”

“His innocence—or guilt,” Rollins said.

“I'm sorry, but I can't help you.” Vallancourt rose, and Rollins took the hint with a flattening of his lips and a glitter in his restless eyes. He rose, too.

“It was kind of you to give me so much of your valuable time, Mr. Vallancourt.” The insolence again. Or frustration. Perhaps a little of both, Vallancourt thought.

After Rollins was gone, he found it hard to return to work. His thoughts kept returning to Keith. Having met the father, he felt a sympathy for the son. But he was not reassured. Knowing why the young lion was hungry did not make his appetite less dangerous.

Vallancourt was on the point of driving off the next morning when Mrs. Ledbetter called to him with unaccustomed shrillness.

He stopped the car and hurried back into the house.

“It's Miss Ferguson, Mr. Vallancourt. I've never heard her so upset. She says it's very urgent.”

He crossed the high, vaulted entry hall. Charles was plugging in a phone, extending it.

“Dorcas?”

“Thank God! John …” Her voice was gurgly, as if she had been sobbing. “I must see you.”

Keith … rape-murder …
The words sprang into his head.

“Dorcas, what's the matter? What's happened?”

“I can't tell you … not over the phone. Can you … I hate to break in on you this way—”

“I'll be right over,” he said.

She made a choked sound of gratitude and the line went dead.

Vallancourt swung into the Ferguson driveway twenty minutes later. The Norman lines of the house wheeled into view.

Two cars were parked at one side of the driveway ahead of him—a small open sports car, and behind it a blue sedan.

The door of the sedan on the driver's side was open. Howard Conway had apparently just got out and gone forward to look into the sports car. He turned toward the Continental as Vallancourt brought it to a nose-dipping stop.

Vallancourt got out quickly and moved to the fleshy younger man.

“I just got a call from Dorcas, Howard—”

“So did I. Just minutes ago. What's up, John?”

“I don't know.” He glanced at the sports car. “Keith's?”

Conway nodded.

They hurried across the strip of lawn between the driveway and the house.

“Dorcas?” Conway called when they were inside. He glanced at Vallancourt, moved a few steps further. And then a tremendous shock rippled over Conway's frame. All the color left his face.

“God Almighty!”

Vallancourt rushed into the living room where Dorcas lay, and dropped beside her. His heart seemed to dissolve, leaving a cold cavity in his chest.

He knew instantly that Dorcas Ferguson was dead. The black, silver-stranded hair was fanned across her Indian face, wisps of it sticking to her unseeing eyeballs. Her lower jaw hung to the limits of it hinges, making an ugly red and black hole of the once-warm, generous mouth.

From the odd, twisted position of her head, Vallancourt raised his eyes slowly. Up the leg of the heavy table. To the edge of the table where the finish was marred by a smear of blood and a few hairs. He guessed what the table's edge had done to the base of her skull. He did not care for a closer look.

He was aware of Howard Conway standing nearby, grasping the back of a chair. He rose, started toward Conway … and out of the corner of his eyes saw a drapery move.

Vallancourt lunged, ripping the drapery aside.

It was Keith Rollins.

Vallancourt saw the blow coming and rolled with the punch, taking it high on his cheek. His brain jarred, his left knee buckled slightly. Then he was all right. With his right foot he thrust himself forward, ducking under Keith's next frantic blow. His fingers touched the boy's arm. Keith screamed softly and lashed out with his foot. Vallancourt slid to one side, and Keith had an instant in which to turn. He covered his face and head with his arms and plunged through the tall window in a shower of glass.

“Look at him! Look at him!” Conway shouted senselessly.

Keith struck grass, tripped, rolled, bounced to his feet, tore his way through shrubbery. He did not pause to look back, but darted toward his sports car.

Nearer to the front door, Conway was outside before Vallancourt. The sports car was fishtailing around the bend in the driveway. The breeze carried the pungency of scorched rubber back to them.

“Call the police, John,” Conway shouted as he ran. “Tell 'em to head him off!”

Conway threw himself in his car, fumbled with the ignition, shouted a four-letter word, and got the car started. The sedan shot away in pursuit.

Vallancourt phoned the police.

Dorcas Ferguson is dead. The most important woman in this end of the state has been murdered
.

He could see the headlines, the editorials. The shortwave police band would soon be chanting the old litany that was always new:

All cars … Wanted on suspicion of murder, Keith Rollins
…
age twenty-two. Husky build. Black hair
.
Dark blue eyes. Driving MG, late model, license BF-3850. Fleeing estate of Dorcas Ferguson, victim. Approach with caution. Suspect was recently questioned in connection with a Florida rape-murder
…

Vallancourt returned to the front door, watching the driveway. He made a pad of his handkerchief and applied it to the bruise Keith had left, only partially aware of the throb in his cheekbone. In these scant remaining moments of quiet, the fact of Dorcas's death was a vaster pain. Dorcas dead. Dorcas dead.

Grief was acid in his throat.

He heard the sound of an approaching car, and looked up. It was Ivy Conway's compact sedan.

She parked sloppily, leaving the driveway barely passable.

“Hi,” she said wanly. She looked tired. She manufactured a grin, touching her temple. “Long evening at the country club bar,” she confessed. “Why do I always say never again?”

She started toward the front steps, the breeze feathering the gossamer brown hair about her small face. “What's wrong with you, John? Don't tell me you tied one on, too! This I would have to see.” She laughed.

Vallancourt touched her arm. “Before you go inside, Ivy …”

“Whatever is the matter with you?”

“A dreadful thing has happened.”

“Happened?” Then she said quickly, “Not to Dorcas!”

“I'm afraid so.”

They had stopped midway up the front steps. She jerked her head toward the house.

From the distance came the approaching wail of a police siren.

Very slowly and carefully, Ivy turned.

“An ambulance, John?”

“No,” he said gently.

“Then—police?”

“Yes.”

“Dorcas … the
police?
”

She darted into the house. She was at the edge of the living room when Vallancourt caught her. She looked into the room, struck herself in the temple, and began to scream.

5.

During the police preliminaries Ivy Ferguson Conway crouched in a chair and refused to move, like a child waking in the dark after a nightmare.

Her husband's voice mingled finally with that of the uniformed policeman on duty in the foyer. Conway came in, shaking his head. “Lost him, John. He must have slipped the MG through that parking area at the shopping center. When I tumbled to it and backtracked, there was no sign of him.”

Vallancourt tilted his head in Ivy's direction. Conway looked startled. He crossed the room, stooped over her, spoke quietly. Some of the blankness left her eyes. She moaned suddenly, grabbed her husband about the neck, and began to sob. He picked her up, glanced at a policeman, got a nod, and carried Ivy out of the room.

A lanky, sweating detective in a rumpled gray suit followed the Conways out. Vallancourt knew him; his name was Woody Britt.

Britt was in charge at least for the moment. He had questioned Vallancourt in a halting fashion, unsure of himself. The man was obviously dreading the important investigation that had fallen to him.

Vallancourt needed to get out of that room. He walked to the front door and lit a cigarette. An ambulance with Dorcas Ferguson's body inside was vanishing around the curve in the driveway. He looked away from the heavy vehicle.

In one respect, he thought, Britt had shown tact, barring TV and newspaper reporters. Dorcas would not be subjected to the horror of having pictures of her battered corpse frontpaged all over the state.

A station wagon eased to a stop at the end of the string of parked cars. Ralph Hibbs backed out and came puffing up the driveway.

Behind his glasses, Hibbs's gentle eyes were bewildered. His large, soft body was shaking.

“It's true, John?” he said. “It's true?”

“I'm afraid so, Ralph.”

“Those policemen guarding the driveway … I had a time convincing them I was a friend, not a reporter. Have they taken her away, John?”

Vallancourt nodded.

“I can't
believe
it! How could it have happened?”

Easily, he thought. In a moment of violence, she was shoved, went over backward, and the edge of the table was waiting for the base of her skull. Very easily.

“The news is flying around town,” Hibbs babbled. “There was a special bulletin on TV. Said that she'd been murdered and her nephew was being sought. Have they caught him yet?”

“Not to my knowledge, Ralph.”

“Just think of it! A couple days ago we were playing golf with him, and Dorcas was full of plans for his future …”

There was movement behind Vallancourt. He glanced over his shoulder, saw the detective.

“Hello, Woody,” Ralph Hibbs said. “Terrible thing! Have they assigned you to the case?”

“I'd rather be chasing down a nameless punk,” said Britt gloomily. “Well, at least I can wrap it up quick and get it off my back.”

“It's so damn unbelievable,” Hibbs said. “Dorcas had taken Keith in, was giving him the chance for a new start.”

“And got her head stove in for her trouble.” Britt added a bitter note: “Too bad you and Mr. Conway let him get away, Mr. Vallancourt.”

Vallancourt let it pass. He had been the victim of surprise, in a moment of shock. If Britt didn't understand that, no explanation would suffice.

“What do you think happened, Britt?” he asked.

“It's a cinch it goes back to that Florida murder,” the lanky detective said. “They almost had a case against him, you know, and Dorcas Ferguson was nobody's fool. Something the boy said or did must have told her he was that girl's killer, all right. The way she called her brother-in-law and you, Mr. Vallancourt, shows how upset she was. She wanted help and advice. I figure she wasn't quite ready to pull the string on the murdering louse.”

The two men said nothing as Britt paused to light a cigar. “Miss Ferguson was alone, remember. It was the maid's day off, and Mildred Morgan had taken the chauffeur-handyman to the center for the week's shopping. We've just finished talking to them.

“Miss Ferguson was in her study when the servants went grocery buying. She must have been there when Keith Rollins showed, suspecting a chill wind was about to blow his way. A few words with his aunt convinced him of it.

“I don't think the boy wanted or intended to kill her,” Britt frowned. “He got panicky, is all. Wanted to make tracks. He needed dough and had a fat chance of getting it from his aunt right then. But she always kept a metal cashbox in her desk. And, friends, that box is now missing.”

“But she wasn't killed in her study,” Hibbs protested.

Woody Britt gave him a sour look. “He threatened her, see? And took the box. Started out of the house, coming through the doorway connecting the living room and study. You expect her just to sit there? Not Miss Dorcas Ferguson.

“In the living room, she catches up with him. She's plenty put out after all she tried to do for him. She gets in his way, and Keith …” Britt made a shoving motion with his hands. “So she falls backwards and her head …” Britt snapped his bony fingers.

The man's teeth were yellowish clamps on his cigar. “Only he ain't out of the woods, not by a long shot. He's in the living room with her dead body, and two men are walking in on him, Mr. Conway and you, Mr. Vallancourt. He ducks behind the drapery, hoping you'll take one look and run like hell to get help, giving him a chance for a getaway.”

“That's all pretty much guesswork, Britt,” said Vallancourt.

“Sure, but how the hell else could it have happened? You figure another way, Mr. Vallancourt?”

Vallancourt shrugged. “Do you mind if I leave now? I've given you all the help I can, and I'm anxious to get back to my daughter.”

“Sure. Go on. If I need you, I'll give you a ring. But I don't think I'll have to. We'll have him behind bars by nightfall. The state patrol's been alerted, roadblocks set up. We got this Rollins kid bottled up in this section of the state. If he gets out, it won't be alive.”

Charles and Mrs. Ledbetter had heard the news. Vallancourt called them into his study and briefed them on the details, concluding with the thought uppermost in his mind: “It's possible, perhaps probable, that Keith Rollins will try to contact Nancy.”

The Ledbetters, he suspected, had already considered the possibility. Charles said, “We'll bear it in mind, Mr. Vallancourt.”

They left and he placed a call to the dean's office at the college. When Dean Hansbury was on the line, he said, “This is John Vallancourt. I'm reluctant to disrupt her schedule, but can you have someone contact my daughter in class and have her call home? It's urgent.”

As he hung up, the sound of a voice drifted in. He went out quickly. Charles was at the front door, firmly insisting that he would have to determine if Mr. Vallancourt was home.