Flight to Darkness (6 page)

“
Reckon you weren’t really asleep,
were you?” Redfern said. “Want to ask you some questions, Garth.
You are Garth, aren’t you?”

“
What’s this all about? That’s my
name.” I was fogged with sleep and everything was a jumble. My head
no longer ached but it felt thick, heavy, hard. “Sure, I was
asleep.”

Redfern motioned toward the cop in the corner.
“This is Bill Hartly. Bill, when you sneaked in an’ lit the lights
did he ’pear to be sleeping?”

Hartly looked at me, snapped his eyes away
quickly, shook his head. “No.”

I couldn’t recall dreaming. But I might have.
I was damp with sweat.

I swung my feet to the floor. Redfern stepped
back and leaned against the bureau. He folded his hands and leaned
on one elbow. His eyes were wary, sneering.

Woodruff’s face still hung in the doorway. The
cop stepped outside, closed the door. I glimpsed Woodruff’s face
peering intently in the window as he walked by. The rain fell
heavily on the lawn out there among the suddenly windy
pines.

This Hartly was young, with a smooth, sunny
face. He was trying very hard to look grim.

All I could think was, They’ve come for me.
Where in God’s name is Leda? My stomach burned and fear was like a
thick clot of blood in my throat.

“
Where’s my wife?” My voice was
shaky. I tried not to show anything. “What’s happened?”

“
You’re a bit late with that one,”
Redfern said. “They usually get it in sooner.”

“
She went into town. Where is she?”
They could have no way of knowing she wasn’t my wife.

“
You went into town, too, didn’t
you, Garth?”

“
No.”

“
Sure,” Redfern said. He released
his hands and wiped his nose with a thick finger. His nails were
dirty. The front of his vest was stained. But his eyes were still
and cold with intelligence.

“
His wife’s over in the lunchroom,”
Hartly said. “I checked. I didn’t bother her, didn’t go
inside.”

“
Naw. No use in that,” Redfern
said. “There was only one person in the car. A man. You,
Garth.”

It was getting me now. “All right,” I said.
“Tell me.”

Redfern folded his hands and leaned against
the bureau. “Suppose you tell me.”

I started past Hartly, headed for the door. He
grabbed my arm. I tore loose, whirled on Redfern. “Damn it! What’s
the matter?”

“
Get some clothes on,” he said.
“It’s cold and wet outside.”

“
I don’t need any
clothes!”

“
Put some clothes on, like I
say.”

We looked at each other. I swore to myself,
slipped into socks, shoes, pants, and a sweater.

“
All right,” Redfern said. “Come
on.”

“
Where?”

“
Get your coat.”

“
Haven’t got one. It’s
packed.”

He shrugged. “Well, just come on,
then.”

Hartly opened the door, looking very grim.
Woodruff nudged me forward. We went on out the door and across the
sodden lawn. It was dark; the rain shone in puddles on the drive
and silvered the pines.

In the back of my mind the specter of the
dream set up its everlasting haunt. It was a cheap ghost and I knew
it. But it lurked in the crannies just the same, peering fiendishly
forth, certain of my anxiety.

We went on to the far curve of the drive, then
off the drive across the lawn between two cabins that were empty.
My convertible was parked under some pines. I started on toward the
front of the car, but Redfern gently held me back. “No. This
way.”

We stood behind the car in the rain. “Now,
look, Garth. You going to tell me about it? Or you going to make it
hard?” Redfern said. “Let’s concede the facts. You’re a dope and
you know it.”

I didn’t say anything.

He sighed. “Were you in town today? Sordell?
About an hour ago, say, maybe?”

“
No. I’ve never seen Sordell, damn
it.”

Redfern sighed more loudly.

Hartly snatched a fingerful of water off the
rear fender of the car, snapped it at the ground. “He’s lying.
Can’t you see?” Hartly was very young. I felt like smacking him and
remembered what Doc Prescott had said about that. But I hadn’t
smacked anybody in a long while. Blood came up into my shoulders
and the back of my neck. The muscles across my stomach tightened,
and there was a heavy, good stiffness in my fist as I closed it
tight.

Redfern noticed. “Hang on, fella,” he said.
“Just hang on.”

“
Look,” I said patiently. “Tell me
who you are.”

“
I’m a detective with headquarters
in Sordell. Police. This isn’t routine, Garth.”

“
No,” Hartly said. “Wise up, Garth.
In a hit-and-run seems like somebody sees it most of the time. Only
you’re a dope, Garth. You ran, but you quit too soon. It was a fast
report. The tip was fast, and there was fast radio work. Slim
Gullen down at the gas station even seen you turn in here. Wise up,
for God’s sake.”

Hartly’s words reached me through a fog.
Hit-and-run? You didn’t do those things. The wild craziness that
used to grip me in the hospital took hold—inside.

I had to see Leda. If she was in the
lunchroom, I had to see her. She’d had the car. She must know
something.

“
Let’s look at your car,” Redfern
said. “We already looked, of course. Just want to show
you.”

We walked on around toward the front of the
car. Hartly had a flashlight. I wondered where the other cop
was.

Hartly lit the light.

In the hushed dripping of the rain Redfern
held my arm. I was suddenly mad and I knew I could take him if I
could get one swing at that bulging gut, that stained vest. I
wrenched away from him, whirled.

My mouth opened and stayed that way. I spotted
the left front fender of the car in the bright white light of
Hartly’s flash. Redfern hadn’t moved.

“
You aren’t startled, are you,
Garth?”

I was plenty startled and then I was scared.
Hit-and-run is a bad thing. I was sure it hadn’t been me. I’d been
asleep. What about Leda?

The left front fender of the car was dented
badly. The headlight was broken and part of the grille was
bent.

“
We already took some samples of
blood,” Redfern said. “Leastways, it looks like blood. There was so
much of it the rain didn’t even wash it away. Some hair, too. Red
hair. Bet you didn’t notice he had red hair when you hit him, did
you?”

I just went on staring.

“
Makes you think, hey,
Garth?”

Then something snapped. Down inside me
something let go; something that had been tied securely out at the
hospital. It was like choking on water, spitting it out.

I looked at Redfern. He was looking at Hartly.
I ducked low and swung with my right fist. There was no thought
behind it, I just swung with all my might. The fist sank into
Redfern’s middle, I felt it sink, and he made a noise from his
stomach. My head throbbed and all I could think was, Prescott said
don’t and if you feel like it, take a walk quickly.

I shoved Redfern before he struck the ground.
I ran between the cabins, heading for the lunchroom. I had to find
Leda.

“
Pete!” Hartly yelled.
“Samson!”

I ran on the wet grass, head down, my feet
sliding.

A shadow burst from in front of a cabin. The
other cop with his hand raised, holding something. I dove for the
hand. My foot slid and I pulled a split.

The hand came down hard once, twice against my
head, and then I was lying with my face pressed into the puddled
gravel of the driveway. My head ached and bright white pains
flashed into my middle like tracer bullets.

“
My God, what a dope.”

“
Dope is right.”

“
His fingers moved, I think he’s
coming around.”

The rain was cool on the back of my
head.

Sprawled in the muddy gravel drive I knew for
sure it was just too good. I had a bad head now, all
right.

Chapter 4

“
He’s got a hard head.”

“
The son-of-a-bitch, I should of
cracked it.”

“
Come on, Garth,” Redfern said.
“Get up!” He grabbed my arm, helped yank me to my feet. The rain
wasn’t letting up and the night was as black as Amelia Woodruff’s
hair. “He just wants to play it the hard way,” Redfern said. “We
get ’em lots of times like that. Reckon he’ll loosen up,
though.”

I was dazed. Hartly had said Leda was in the
lunchroom. I started to pull away from Redfern but he caught me
up.

“
Geez,” Hartly said. “He still
wants to run.”

The other cop grunted and walked off toward my
cabin.

“
He’s perturbed is all,” Redfern
said. “Anybody’d be perturbed. You’d be perturbed, Bill, if you
done a thing like this. Reckon I’d even be perturbed.”

“
I want to see my wife.”

“
That’s where we’re going. Come
on.”

Redfern led me back down the drive and I saw a
squad car with a spotlight mounted on the roof. The other cop was
at the wheel. Hartly climbed in front. Redfern said, “I’ll sit in
back with Mr. Garth. You’ll have to come back for his
car.”

We went around the drive and stopped in front
of the lunchroom. I saw Leda seated inside at the counter, talking
with Amelia Woodruff. Leda still wore the play suit with the green
lizards climbing on it.

We went inside. Leda saw the cops, then me,
and her eyes went wide. “Eric! What’s happened?”

I stepped quickly over to the counter beside
her, told her to be still. Redfern and Hartly stood behind me.
Amelia Woodruff’s eyes glazed and the long talons of her right hand
fussed with a brooch which dangled from the bodice of her dress
like a clock pendulum.

Just then Herb Woodruff came in from the
kitchen.

“
Amelia,” he said. “Amelia, get
back here.” He looked hard at me, then said, “Amelia,”
again.

She turned and looked at him.

Redfern said, “Yeah, Mrs. Woodruff. Better do
like your husband says.”

Amelia glanced at Leda, then me. She turned
and stalked back into the kitchen. The spring door flapped like my
grandmother’s old palm-frond fan. The one with the Sherwin Funeral
Parlors advertisement printed on it.

Neither Redfern nor Hartly said
anything.

“
Did you go into town?” I asked
Leda.

“
Sure.” She looked at me anxiously.
“I came back just a few minutes ago. What’s the matter? You’re all
over mud.”

“
Never mind that. How’d the car get
back to the cabin if you stopped here?”

“
I didn’t take the car, darling. I
took one of those little buses that run into town.” She shrugged.
“I went to the drugstore, got the tooth paste and the other stuff
you wanted.” She moved her hand to the counter, flicked her finger
against a paper bag. “I took the bus on around the town and back
out here. The lights weren’t on in the cabin so I figured you were
asleep. Didn’t want to wake you yet.” Her eyes told me what no one
else could see. But she kept looking at my mud-stained clothes.
“What’s the matter, Eric?”

“
You sure you didn’t take the
car?”

“
Certainly.”

Redfern and Hartly said nothing. I felt hollow
inside—hollow and dead. Then I seemed to wake up a little and knew
I’d be able to explain it easily enough. It was all
foolish.

I jerked my head at Redfern and Hartly. “They
say I had the car in town. That I hit somebody, then drove back
here.”

Leda made a face. “For God’s sake, that’s
silly.”

Redfern grunted and wiped his finger across
his nose. I looked at them both. They were as soaked with rain as
I, but I got no satisfaction from it.

“
This man’s been very sick,” Leda
said. “He just left the hospital a few days ago. This sort of thing
isn’t good for him. I can vouch for him.”

Redfern nodded. “Sure, sure.”

The kitchen door flapped and Amelia Woodruff
stalked into the room. She stood with both hands on the counter and
looked at me. “Mr. Garth. We’d take it as a kindness if you and
Mrs. Garth would leave right away.” Her eyes narrowed, her black
hair shone in the bright blue neon light that gleamed from bars
along the ceiling. “We don’t like your kind here. Please leave
immediately.”

“
Amelia,” Herb Woodruff called.
“Get back here!”

She made a wry face and the brooch swung
pendulously along her empty bosom. As her husband started through
the door, she turned and went back into the kitchen. The door
flapped. I could hear them talking out there.

“
Darling, just tell these men that
you were asleep in the cabin. That you didn’t take the car.” She
turned to Redfern. “He didn’t drive into town. I’m telling you
that. Ask Mr. Woodruff. He’d know if the car left here.”