Killing Mr. Griffin (10 page)

“Someday I’m going to live completely alone in a cabin a million miles from anywhere and think and read and write poetry and maybe even novels.” She paused and then asked tentatively, “Do you think that’s crazy, wanting to do that?” “That’s not crazy,” David said. “My father—” He stopped himself. “Yes?” “He did something like that, I think. Just left and went and did his thing, without worrying about what people thought. He looked like me. My gram says he did, anyway, and there’s a picture of him I found, and I remember a little. I

remember his hands. They were thin and strong and they were always gentle when they touched me. Did you ever notice Griffin’s hands?”

“No,” Susan said. “Not really. Should I have?” “I guess there’s no reason you would. I never noticed them myself until this afternoon when we were tying him up, and all of a sudden I got this funny feeling. There was something about his hands that reminded me of my father.” “How odd,” Susan said. “Shouldn’t the turnoff be right along here someplace?” “I think so. It’s hard to tell at night.” David squinted into the darkness. “Is that it—that road there? That is a road, isn’t it? Yes, I think that’s it.” “Let’s try it,” Susan said.

“If we’re wrong it just means backing out and starting over.” David turned the car onto the dirt trail and inched it forward, the headlights throwing back strange shapes and shadows as trees and bushes and rocks emerged from the depths of the darkness and crept past them and fell away again as new forms took their places. “It’s the right road,” he said. “How can you tell?” “I remember how it took a jog to the right. You can’t see it now, but there’s a big, craggy sort of rock there on the left.” “I can’t see anything,” Susan told him.

“Just what’s directly ahead of us.” Some time later she asked, “Haven’t we come too far?” “No way. We go to the end, remember?”

“But it’s taking so long.” “That’s because I’m driving so slowly. All we need is to get stuck here. That would really fix things.” They

drove on in silence, and then, suddenly, they were at the clearing.

Susan caught her breath with a little gasp. “Someone’s here!” “No.

That’s Griffin’s car.” “You left it parked right here where anybody could see it?” “Who’s going to see it? Nobody comes up this far, especially at night.” He pulled up next to the Chevrolet and turned off the ignition and the headlights. Immediately they were overwhelmed by silence. Complete. Unbroken. Heavy. Weighted. The absolute stillness of a forest at night. For a long moment they sat, unmoving.

When Susan spoke at last it was in a whisper. “It’s so—black.”

“There’s a flashlight in the glove compartment. My mother keeps it there in case of emergencies.” David reached across her and groped along the dashboard. He located the button and pressed it, and the front of the glove compartment swung down and he reached inside. For one awful moment he thought the light was not there, but then he found it, shoved back under some papers. He took it out and pushed the door back into place. “Okay,” he said. “Are you ready?” Without waiting for her answer, he pulled the handle and opened the car door. He got out, and his feet crunched loudly into dried leaves and dead branches.

“Wait,” Susan said, “I’ll come out your side,” and she slid out behind him. For some inexplicable reason, David could not bring himself to slam the car door. The sound would have cut through the stillness like a gunshot. Instead, he let it ease into place, and then he pressed the switch to turn on the flashlight. The thin beam shot ahead of them,

illuminating the path entrance. “Okay?” he asked. “Okay,” Susan said shakily. And then—“Dave, think how dark—how terribly dark it must be—back where he is! Think how it must be for him lying there, all alone, not knowing if anybody’s going to come-ever!” “Well, we’re here now, so he doesn’t have to lie there much longer,” David said reassuringly. He took her hand. It felt small and cold in his, and he squeezed it hard. There was no reason for a girl like Susan to be here, frightened and remorseful, staggering around the mountain darkness. Why had he drawn her into this crazy plot? he asked himself angrily. Why, indeed, had he been drawn into it himself? It had been a dumb idea right from the beginning. People didn’t go around kidnapping other people just because they didn’t like them. There was nothing amusing about it, nothing to be gained by doing it. If anyone but Mark had suggested it, he would have told him he was nuts. But somehow with Mark things always seemed so sensible. When Mark looked at you with those odd, gray eyes of his, when Mark spoke your name and put his hand on your shoulder-“How long has it been since you did something crazy, just for the hell of it?” Mark had asked him, and it had been as though he had reached straight into him and placed a finger on the open sore at the core of his soul. After that things had happened so fast there had been no time for reconsidering. It had all been there before them, laid out the way it should go. He had been swept up by the plan as completely as though it had been his own. He had thought of calling Susan-or had he? Was it he or someone else who

had suggested that? He had hardly known Susan at that point.

To him she had been no more than a studious, shy little mouse of a girl who had tried to help him catch his papers when the wind had caught them. “Well, let’s go,” he said. “The sooner we get there, the sooner it’s done. He’s going to be one mad dude when we get to him.” The beam of the flashlight led them forward, and a moment later the bushes had closed in behind them. A few paces more and they could hear the waterfall. It grew louder and louder—much louder than it had seemed in the daytime—as though the whole night was made up of rushing water.

As they approached the stream bank, David tightened his grip on Susan’s hand. “There’s no way we’re going to get him out of here without untying him,” he told her. “You do know that, don’t you? If Jeff were here, he could do it. He’d just drag him out with the ropes and blindfold still on him. But I’m not a burly athlete. We’ll have to untie him here and let him walk out.” “I know.” “What I mean is, he’ll see who we are. There’s no way to prevent it. We’re really letting ourselves in for it. He can have us expelled.” “I know,”

Susan said again. “It doesn’t matter. I mean, of course, it matters, but we don’t have any choice, do we?” “I guess not,” David said. The light moved ahead and fell upon him—the man by the stream. He was lying exactly as he had been when they left him, straight and still, the blindfold neatly in place. A cry broke from Susan’s lips, and she dropped David’s hand and hurried forward. “Oh,” she moaned, dropping

to her knees beside the still figure. “Oh, Mr. Griffin, I’m sorry!

I’m so sorry—so sorry—” Her voice broke, and she grasped the rope at the man’s wrists, fumbling for the knot. “David, I can’t find the end!

How did you tie this? Oh, please, hurry and get this off him. It’s cutting the circulation.” “Here—it goes all the way around behind.”

David knelt down beside her. “I’m sorry too, sir. This was a dumb, rotten thing to do. We’ll have you undone in a minute. Try to roll over sideways so I can reach the knot in back.” The man did not move.

“He’s asleep,” Susan said in amazement. “How could he be asleep with the ground so hard? Mr. Griffin, wake up! Please, wake up! We’re here to take you home!” “Move back, Sue,” David said hoarsely. “But, we’ve got to wake him—” “I said, move back. Let me get at the blindfold.” He gripped the cloth with numb fingers and yanked it upward until it slid off the forehead and onto the ground. Then he lifted the flashlight and turned the beam straight into the man’s face.

“His eyes are open,” Susan breathed. “He’s not asleep. His eyes are open!” “He’s not asleep,” David agreed softly. “Then why doesn’t he move? Why doesn’t he say something? Mr. Griffin, it’s Sue—Susan McConnell—from your lit class, remember? Please, Mr. Griffin-David turned the light away from the wide, unblinking stare of the man on the ground beside him. “He’s not asleep,” he said. “He’s dead.”

We’ve got to get to Mark! The single sentence screamed again and again through his brain. We’ve got to get to Mark! Mark will know what to do. It got him back down the path, dragging Susan behind him, stumbling, falling once, getting up again, Susan’s wrist still tightly encircled by his hand. It got him into the car, the key into the ignition, the engine into life. It took them back along the dirt road without running off the side into the underbrush, onto the highway without swerving and running headlong into an oncoming car. We’ve got to get to Mark. Mark will know what to do. He said it aloud, emphasizing each word. “To do? How can anybody do anything?” Susan said. “You can’t make a dead person come alive.” She wasn’t crying.

Susan, whose tears had fallen continuously since the middle of the afternoon, was no longer weeping. David glanced sideways at her there

on the seat beside him, dry-eyed and expressionless, her lips pressed tightly together except when they parted to let the thin, flat voice come through. “There’s nothing Mark can do,” Susan said. “We’re murderers.” “We didn’t kill him! We hardly touched him! I swear it, Sue, nobody roughed the guy up. He was fine when we left him. You know what he said to us? Mark told him, “Beg us, Mr. G. Plead with us,” and he said, “I most certainly will not.” Does that sound like a guy who’s been banged around?” “People don’t just die, for no reason.”

“This guy did. I swear it—honestly—we didn’t hurt him. The worst we did was tie the rope around him. That could never kill anybody.” David bore down on the accelerator. “We’ve got to get to Mark. He’ll know how to handle things—who to call—what to do. What the hell do you do when somebody’s dead like that, for no reason, way out in the mountains? Who goes and gets them? An ambulance couldn’t ever make it up that road.” “We can go to my house and get my dad,” Susan said.

“He’ll help us.” “Mark first. We can’t do anything until we tell Mark. My God, Sue, why did we have to be the ones to find him? If you hadn’t insisted we go up there it would have been Mark and Jeff. They’d have taken care of things. It was crazy for us to have gone up there without telling them or anything.” They pulled into the Del Norte parking lot. It was seething with activity; voices shouted, headlights blinked on in all directions, car horns blasted as automobiles tried to

inch their way into the creeping lines of traffic.

“The game must just be over,” Susan said. “You’ll never find him in this.” “Sure I will. We’re in luck; there are parking spaces.” There was one right ahead of him, and David pulled into it, braking and shifting suddenly so as to bypass the fender of the car next to him.

“Come on, let’s get in there.” “I’m not going.” “What do you mean you’re not going?” “I just can’t face it. All those people, yelling and screaming because we won or lost a basketball game. David, what’s wrong with you? We don’t belong here. We ought to be—” “Okay—okay.”

He didn’t want to listen to her any longer. “I’m going to find Mark.

This is your last chance to come with me. Are you coming?” “I want my father.” “We’ll talk about that later. We tell Mark first. Are you coming?” “No.” “Then sit here and wait. I’ll be back in a minute.

We’ll be back in a minute.” He left the car and half walked, half ran across the parking lot. People were pouring out of the doorways to the gym. He had to stand on the edge of the flood, working his way in between two outward-rushing people, then between another pair. Somebody shouted, “Hey, Dave, where are you going?” Somebody else gave him a hard shove in the ribs with an elbow, muttering, “The tide goes in the other direction, good buddy.” Mark—where was Mark? David worked his way down an aisle. The crowd was thinning now and there was nobody

left on the gym floor. The score was still posted on the board, home team, 61, visitors, 57. Del Norte had won, then, as usual. There was no way anybody defeated Jeff when he charged down the court, a head taller than anyone else; that ball under absolute control. Why couldn’t the rest of life be controlled so easily? How could things get out of hand so quickly? Mark—Mark—where are you? Then he saw him at last, down at the end of the court in front of the door to the locker room, standing with Betsy. Dave broke into a run, his eyes trained on them, unable to see anything except the two figures.

“Mark!” He opened his mouth to shout the name, but no sound emerged.

“Mark—Mark—Mark—” His lips kept moving, but nothing came from between them. They saw him now. Both of them had turned toward him, Betsy with her lips parted, her eyes wide and astonished. “Why, it’s David!” Mark’s face was inscrutable. “Yeah, it’s David. Well, boy, how goes it? Something the matter?” “He’s dead,” David said. He had not meant to state it so abruptly. The words flew out of him, escaping from his throat and over the top of his tongue before he could stop them, before he could weigh what he was saying. “He’s dead.” There was a moment’s silence. Then Mark said, “Griffin?” “Yes.” “How do you know?” “Sue and I went up there. We looked at him. There’s no guessing about it, Mark; he’s gone. He’s-gone.” How could one describe those eyes staring upward into the far reaching, incredible space of the night sky? “He’s dead, Mark.” “I believe you.” Betsy

was staring at both of them, speechless.

“Where’s Sue?” Mark asked. “Why isn’t she with you?” “She’s out in the car.” “In the lot, here?” “Yes.” “Then get out there, boy! She might take off across the place and yell to a pig. She’s all spaced out, that chick. Run, now! I mean it!” “Aren’t you coming?” “Sure, I’m coming. I’ve got to wait for Jeff. Betsy, you go with Dave. Do something about Sue. You know how she’ll go—a total basket case.” He reached out suddenly and touched Betsy’s cheek, his hand light, almost but not quite a caress. “Hey, girl, I’m counting on you.”

“Yes—okay.” Betsy’s eyes were huge in her round face. “David said—I mean, it’s not true, is it? It can’t be, can it? Mark, he’s not really—I mean—” “Get going, will you? Nobody needs to see us standing together like this. Jeff will be out in a minute, and we’ll come join you.” They went. They crossed the corner of the gym floor together, David’s hand placed protectively beneath Betsy’s elbow. A few people turned—turned back—smiled at each other. Guess what? A new romance! The senior class president and the head cheerleader, what a perfect combination! Why hadn’t it happened sooner? “You didn’t mean it, did you, David? It’s all a joke, isn’t it?” “A real funny one,” David said numbly. He tightened his grip on her elbow until his nails bit into her flesh and she jerked away from him. Where am I? he asked himself in bewilderment. What am I doing here? Where has the