Psycho - Three Complete Novels (6 page)

Norman slumped back, not daring to move, not wanting to move. Every instant it was getting harder and harder to move even if he
had
wanted to. The roaring was steady now, and the vibration was rocking him to sleep. That was nice. To be rocked to sleep, with mother standing watching you—

Then she was gone. She’d turned around without saying anything and gone out. There was nothing to be afraid of. She’d come to protect him from the bitches. Yes, that was it. She’d come to protect him. Whenever he needed her, Mother was there. And now he could sleep. There was no trick to it at all. You merely went into the roaring, and then
past
the roaring. Then everything was silent.
Silent, silent sleep.

Norman came to with a start, jerking his head back. God it ached! He’d passed out there in the chair, actually passed out. No wonder everything was pounding, roaring.
Roaring.
He’d heard the same sound before. How long ago—an hour, two hours?

Now he recognized it. The shower was going next door. That was it. The girl had gone into the shower. But that had been so long ago. She couldn’t
still
be in there, could she?

He reached forward, tilting the framed license on the wall. His eyes squinted and then focused on the brightly lit bathroom beyond. It was empty. He couldn’t see into the shower stall on the side. The curtains were closed and he couldn’t see.

Maybe she’d forgotten about the shower and gone to bed leaving it turned on. It seemed odd that she’d be able to sleep with the water running full force that way, but then he’d done it himself just now. Maybe fatigue was as intoxicating as alcohol.

Anyway, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong. The bathroom was in order. Norman scanned it once again, then noticed the floor.

Water from the shower was trickling across the tiles. Not much, just a little, just enough for him to see it. A tiny rivulet of water, trailing across the white tiled floor.

Or was it water? Water isn’t
pink.
Water doesn’t have tiny threads of red in it, tiny threads of red like veins.

She must have slipped, she must have fallen and hurt herself,
Norman decided. The panic was rising in him, but he knew what he must do. He grabbed up his keys from the desk and hurried out of the office. Quickly he found the right one for the adjoining unit and opened the door. The bedroom was empty, but the open suitcase still rested on the bed itself. She hadn’t gone away. So he’d guessed correctly; there’d been an accident in the shower. He’d have to go in there.

It wasn’t until he actually entered the bathroom that he remembered something else, and then it was too late. The panic burst loose, but that didn’t help him now. He still remembered.

Mother had keys to the motel too.

And then, as he ripped back the shower curtains and stared down at the hacked and twisted thing sprawled on the floor of the stall, he realized Mother had used her keys.

— 5 —

N
orman locked the door behind him and went up to the house. His clothes were a mess. Blood on them, of course, and water, and then he’d been sick all over the bathroom floor.

But that wasn’t important now. There were other things which must be cleaned up first.

This time he was going to do something about it, once and for all. He was going to put Mother where she belonged. He had to.

All the panic, all the fear, all the horror and nausea and revulsion, gave way to this overriding resolve. What had happened was tragic, dreadful beyond words, but it would never happen again. He felt like a new man—his own man.

Norman hurried up the steps and tried the front door. It was unlocked. The light in the parlor was still burning, but it was empty. He gave a quick glance around, then mounted the stairs.

The door to Mother’s room stood open, and lamplight fanned forth into the hall. He stepped in, not bothering to knock. No need to pretend any more. She couldn’t get away with this.

She couldn’t get away—

But she had.

The bedroom was empty.

He could see the rumpled indentation where she had lain, see the covers flung back on the big four-poster; smell the faint, musty scent still in the room. The rocker rested in the corner, the ornaments stood on the dresser just as they were always arranged. Nothing had changed in Mother’s room; nothing ever changed. But Mother was gone.

He stepped over to the closet, ruffling the clothing on the hangers lining the long center pole. Here the acrid scent was very strong, so strong he almost choked, but there was another odor, too. It wasn’t until his foot slipped that he looked down and realized where it was coming from. One of her dresses and a head-scarf were balled up on the floor. He stooped to retrieve them, then shivered in revulsion as he noted the dark, reddish stains of clotted blood.

She’d come back here, then; come back, changed her clothes, and gone off once more.

He couldn’t call the police.

That was the thing he had to remember. He mustn’t call the police. Not even now, knowing what she had done. Because she wasn’t really responsible. She was sick.

Cold-blooded murder is one thing, but sickness is another. You aren’t really a murderer when you’re sick in the head. Anybody knows that. Only sometimes the courts didn’t agree. He’d read of cases. Even if they did recognize what was wrong with her, they’d still put her away. Not in a rest home, but in one of those awful holes. A state hospital.

Norman stared at the neat, old-fashioned room with its wallpaper pattern of rambler roses. He couldn’t take Mother away from this and see her locked up in a bare cell. Right now he was safe—the police didn’t even know about Mother. She stayed here, in the house, and
nobody
knew. It had been all right to tell the girl, because she’d never see him again. But the police couldn’t find out about Mother and what she was like. They’d put her away to rot. No matter what she’d done, she didn’t deserve
that.

And she wouldn’t have to get it, because nobody knew what she’d done.

He was pretty certain, now, that he could keep anyone from knowing. All he had to do was think it over, think back to the events of the evening, think carefully.

The girl had driven in alone, said she’d been on the road all day. That meant she wasn’t visiting
en route.
And she didn’t seem to know where Fairvale was, didn’t mention any other towns nearby, so the chances were she had no intention of seeing anyone around here. Whoever expected her—if anyone
was
expecting her—must live some distance further north.

Of course this was all supposition, but it seemed logical enough. And he’d have to take a chance on being right.

She had signed the register, of course, but that meant nothing. If anybody ever asked, he’d say that she had spent the night and driven on.

All he had to do was get rid of the body and the car and make sure that everything was cleaned up afterward.

That part would be easy. He knew just how to do it. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but it wouldn’t be difficult, either.

And it would save him from going to the police. It would save Mother.

Oh, he still intended to have things out with her—he wasn’t backing down on that part of it, not this time—but this could wait until afterward.

The big thing now was to dispose of the evidence. The
corpus delicti.

Mother’s dress and scarf would have to be burned, and so would the clothing he was wearing. No, on second thought, he might as well get rid of it all when he got rid of the body.

Norman wadded the garments into a ball and carried them downstairs. He grabbed an old shirt and pair of coveralls from the hook in the back hallway, then shed his clothing in the kitchen and donned the others. No sense stopping to wash up now—that could wait until the rest of the messy business was completed.

But Mother had remembered to wash when she came back. He could see more of the pink stains here at the kitchen sink; a few telltale traces of rouge and powder, too.

He made a mental note to clean everything thoroughly when he got back, then sat down and transferred everything from the pockets of his discarded clothing to those in his coveralls. It was a pity to throw away good clothes like this, but that couldn’t be helped. Not if Mother was to be helped.

Norman went down into the basement and opened the door of the old fruit cellar. He found what he was looking for—a discarded clothes hamper with a sprung cover. It was large enough and it would do nicely.

Nicely—God, how can you think like that about what you’re proposing to do?

He winced at the realization, then took a deep breath. This was no time to be self-conscious or self-critical. One had to be practical. Very practical, very careful, very calm.

Calmly, he tossed his clothes into the hamper. Calmly, he took an old oilcloth from the table near the cellar stairs. Calmly, he went back upstairs, snapped off the kitchen light, snapped off the hall light, and let himself out of the house in darkness, carrying the hamper with the oilcloth on top.

It was harder to be calm here in the dark. Harder not to think about a hundred and one things that might go wrong.

Mother had wandered off—where? Was she out on the highway, ready to be picked up by anyone who might come driving by? Was she still suffering a hysterical reaction, would the shock of what she had done cause her to blurt out the truth to whoever came along and found her? Had she actually run away, or was she merely in a daze? Maybe she’d gone down past the woods back of the house, along the narrow ten-acre strip of their land which stretched off into the swamp. Wouldn’t it be better to search for her first?

Norman sighed and shook his head. He couldn’t afford the risk. Not while that thing still sprawled in the shower stall back at the motel. Leaving it there was even more risky.

He’d had the presence of mind to turn off all the lights, both in the office and in her room, before leaving. But even so, one never knew when some night owl might show up and nose around looking for accommodations. It didn’t happen very often, but every once in a while the signal would buzz; sometimes at one or two o’clock in the morning. And at least once in the course of a night the State Highway Patrol car cruised past her. It almost never stopped, but there was the chance.

He stumbled along in the pitch blackness of moonless midnight. The path was graveled and not muddy, but the rain would have softened the ground behind the house. There’d be tracks. That was something else to think about. He’d leave tracks he couldn’t even see. If only it wasn’t so dark! All at once that was the most important thing—to get out of the dark.

Norman was very grateful when he finally opened the door of the girl’s room and eased the hamper inside, then set it down and switched on the light. The soft glow reassured him for a moment, until he remembered what the light would reveal when he went into the bathroom.

He stood in the center of the bedroom now, and he began to tremble.

No, I can’t do it. I can’t look at her. I won’t go in there. I won’t!

But you have to. There’s no other way. And stop talking to yourself!

That was the most important thing. He had to stop talking to himself. He had to get back that calm feeling again. He had to face reality.

And what was reality?

A dead girl. The girl his mother had killed. Not a pretty sight nor a pretty notion, but there it was.

Walking away wouldn’t bring the girl back to life again. Turning Mother in to the police wouldn’t help alter the situation either. The best thing to do under the circumstances, the
only
thing to do, was to get rid of her. He needn’t feel guilty about it.

But he couldn’t hold back his nausea, his dizziness, and his dry, convulsive retching when it came to actually going into the shower stall and doing what must be done there. He found the butcher knife almost at once; it was under the torso. He dropped
that
into the hamper immediately. There was an old pair of gloves in his coverall pockets; he had to put them on before he could bring himself to touch the rest. The head was the worst. Nothing else was severed, only slashed, and he had to fold the limbs before he could wrap the body in the oilcloth and crowd it down into the hamper on top of the clothing. Then it was done, and he slammed the lid shut.

That still left the bathroom and the shower stall itself to be cleaned up, but he’d deal with that part of the job when he came back.

Now he had to lug the hamper out into the bedroom, then put it down while he found the girl’s purse and ransacked it for her car keys. He opened the door slowly, scanning the road for passing headlights. Nothing was coming—nothing had come this way for hours. He could only hope and pray that nothing
would
come, now.

He was sweating long before he managed to open the trunk of the car and place the hamper inside; sweating, not with exertion, but with fear. But he made it, and then he was back in the room again, picking up the clothing and shoving it into the overnight bag and the big suitcase on the bed. He found the shoes, the stockings, the bra, the panties. Touching the bra and panties was the worst. If there’d been anything left in his stomach it would have come up then. But there was nothing in his stomach but the dryness of fear, just as the wetness of fear soaked his outer skin.

Now what? Kleenex, hairpins, all the little things a woman leaves scattered around the room. Yes, and her purse. It had some money in it, but he didn’t even bother to look. He didn’t want the money. He just wanted to get rid of it fast, while luck still held.

He put the two bags in the car, on the front seat. Then he closed and locked the door of the room. Again he scanned the roadway in both directions. All clear.

Norman started the motor and switched on the lights. That was the dangerous part, using the lights. But he’d never be able to make it otherwise, not through the field. He drove slowly, up the slope behind the motel and along the gravel leading to the driveway and the house. Another stretch of gravel went to the rear of the house and terminated at the old shed which had been converted to serve as a garage for Norman’s Chevy.