Resurrection Dreams (35 page)

He wished he’d parked closer. His car was at the end of the block. He wanted to run, but forced himself to walk.

He watched the neighbor’s house as he strode by. Lights shone from its windows. He saw no one peering out at him.

Ace might’ve gone to the house on the other side, he told himself.

Might’ve gone anywhere.

He kept looking back, half expecting to find someone rushing up behind him, yelling—maybe someone with a gun.

At last, he reached his car. He climbed inside. With a trembling hand, he fumbled the key into the ignition. His heart gave a sickening lurch as headlights appeared on the road ahead.

Cops?

He threw himself across the seat and lay there gasping, listening. The sound of the car came closer, closer. Passed him and faded.

Staying down, he twisted the key. The engine caught.

He pushed himself up, glimpsed the red taillights in the side mirror, then put the car into gear and turned the corner.

A car was parked in Ace’s driveway.

She hadn’t said anything about having company tonight. Maybe assumed I’d be staying at Jack’s, Vicki thought, so she didn’t bother to warn me.

She swung the Mustang to the curb across the street from the house.

Now what? she wondered. I don’t want to blunder into something.

She wondered who the man was.

Maybe it’s not a man.

Of course it is.

Ace had broken up with Jerry a couple of weeks ago, and hadn’t mentioned seeing anyone else. She’d had no dates since Vicki moved in.

Maybe she made up with Jerry.

Could be just about anyone, though.

Vicki sighed. She’d been so reluctant to leave Jack. It had taken all her willpower to resist the urge to stay with him. Now this. If she’d known Ace had company, she probably wouldn’t have left.

Maybe I should turn around, she thought, and go back. No. I made my decision. It was the right decision. And I’m here.

Vicki climbed out of the car. She crossed the street and went up the walkway to the front door. She rang the bell. Waited. Rang it again.

That’s plenty of warning, she decided.

She unlocked the door and opened it—three inches before the guard chain snapped taut.

Great, she thought. Hope they’re not asleep.

She pressed the doorbell a few more times and heard the chimes ring through the house.

“Come on, gang,” she muttered.

Leaning forward, she eased her face into the gap and called, “Ace? Ace, it’s me. You want to let me in?”

Nobody answered.

Okay. They must be in Ace’s room with the door shut. Either asleep or at a bad place to stop, too busy to be interrupted.

Vicki pulled the door shut. She dropped the keys into her handbag, and walked around to the back of the house. Light spilled out through the screen door. The wooden door was open.

If the screen’s locked…

She tried its handle. The door swung open and she stepped into the kitchen.

And went numb.

Blood. Bloody smudges of footprints. And over there…over near the center of the kitchen…

God what happened here!

Gazing at the blood, she took a step forward and kicked something. She looked down. A man’s leather shoe. One of a pair just in front of the door. Crouching, she picked it up and turned it over. The sole was stained with black as if someone had walked through spots of grease in it.

Melvin? Melvin was here?

Maybe still here.

His car in the driveway?

God, Ace, no!

“ACE!”

A sudden noise like a chair scuffing the floor made Vicki flinch and jerk her head to the right. She dropped the shoe.

Curled under the kitchen table, staring at Vicki through the bars of chair legs, was a naked woman.

“Ace?” Vicki whispered.

Didn’t look like Ace. Not with that bloody, distorted face. Not with that raw dome of skull. But the body…

“What did he do to you?” Even as Vicki heard herself blurt the question, she was lunging at the table. She looped the straps of her handbag over her head so the bag hung against her chest, then flung the nearest chair out of the way. She hurled the table up, overturning it. The vase of flowers flew off and hit the wall. The edge of the table crashed against the floor. She dropped onto her knees in front of Ace. Hunching over, she saw blood spilling from two gashes on her back. It came out in slow trickles.

Knife wounds? How deep? How much damage had the knife done, penetrating her?

No way to tell.

But if all the blood on the kitchen floor was from Ace, she’d bled a lot. And she undoubtedly had internal hemorrhaging.

She might be dying.

Vicki rolled her over.

Ace stared up at her, blinking.

“It’s all right,” Vicki whispered.

Though her front was smeared with blood, there were no more wounds that Vicki could see.

Ace raised an arm. Clutched in its hand was a mop of hair. She reached up as if offering it to Vicki.

“Hang onto it, hon. I’m gonna get you to a hospital.”

She lifted Ace’s other hand. The pulse was weak.

She looked across the kitchen at the wall phone.

What if Melvin’s still in the house?

He’s not. He’d be on me by now.

But calling for an ambulance…the volunteer ambulance. The alert would sound through town like last night. The ambulance drivers would leave their homes, drive to the fire station…It might take ten minutes to get here. Or longer.

We could be halfway to Blayton Memorial by then.

“Come on,” Vicki said.

She straddled Ace, grabbed her sticky arms and pulled. Ace came up into a sitting position. “You’ve gotta help,” Vicki muttered. “Can you help?”

Scurrying around behind Ace, she squatted and hugged her beneath the breasts and lifted. Ace shoved her feet at the floor. Vicki staggered backward a step as the weight moved up against her. Then, Ace was on her feet—balanced, at least for the moment. Vicki rushed in front of her. “Grab on.”

She felt Ace fall against her. But she was braced. She stayed up. As Ace’s arms went around her shoulders, Vicki bent slightly and reached back. She clutched Ace’s rump, thrust it upward and bounced.

With Ace on her back, she hooked her hands under the big thighs and lurched to the screen door. She used Ace’s knee to punch the handle, releasing the catch. She rammed the door open and lumbered outside.

And ran.

She didn’t think she could run, but she did.

Ace like a giant child riding piggy-back. Her weight pounding down with every stride Vicki took.

But Vicki stayed up. She kept on running. Alongside the house, across the front yard, her lungs burning, her legs leaden.

If only it were her car in the driveway.

Whose was it?

Who cares?

She only cared about getting to the Mustang. Far ahead. On the other side of the street.

She blinked sweat out of her eyes. She wheezed for air. Ace started to slide down. She tugged her thighs and boosted her higher and kept running. Over the sidewalk and across the street.

At the Mustang, she whirled around. Ace bumped the side of the car. Vicki released her legs. Ace let go. Bracing her up with a hand against her chest, Vicki jerked open the door. She flung the driver’s seatback forward. Ace, turning, bumped against her. Vicki caught her, guided her, shoved her into the car.

Ace fell across the back seat. Facedown, she squirmed over the cushion.

Vicki raced to the trunk. She slipped the handbag straps off her head, dug out the keys, and opened the trunk. In the faint glow of the streetlights, she spotted Ace’s blanket.

Ever since Ace had started driving cars, she’d kept a blanket in the trunk. Never know when you’ll wanta flop in the woods.

Vicki snatched out the blanket, slammed the trunk, and rushed to the open door. Ace was on her side, curled up. Vicki leaned into the car and spread the blanket over her.

“Don’t want the ER doctors drooling over your naked body,” she said.

The blanket was for warmth, not modesty. Standard treatment for shock.

Vicki slapped her haunch through the soft cover, then scurried out, threw the seatback forward and got behind the wheel. She started the engine, pulled the door shut, shifted and shot the car forward.

“Too bad you’re in no condition to appreciate this, hon,” she called out. “This is gonna be the quickest trip to Blayton in the history of man.”

As a professional courtesy, she supposed, Vicki was led to the deserted office of the chief of surgery instead of a waiting room. She was told to make herself comfortable. Then, she was left alone.

With tissues from a box on the desk, she wiped as much blood as she could from her hands and clothes. She wanted to sit down, but she knew that the back of her blouse must be bloody and she didn’t want to make a mess on leather upholstery. Her skirt was clean in front. She twisted it around, then sat on the soft chair and leaned forward, elbows on her legs.

She flinched at the sound of the door opening.

I’m sorry, Dr. Chandler, but we weren’t able to…

The nurse who came in had a cup of coffee on a serving tray with a packet of sugar and a small plastic container of cream. “Can I get you anything else? The kitchen is closed, but we have a vending machine in the lounge.”

Vicki shook her head. “Thanks, I don’t…”

The nurse set the tray on the desk in front of her. “We’ve notified the police, Dr. Chandler. They should be here shortly. They’ll want to speak with you.”

She nodded.

“I’m sure your friend will be fine.”

“Thank you,” she muttered.

The nurse could be sure of no such thing, but Vicki appreciated the kind words.

When she was alone, she picked up the cup. She brought it toward her mouth. Coffee slopped out, splashing hot on her thigh.

She remembered joking with Jack about spilling coffee. Black coffee, white couch. That seemed like days ago. She wondered, vaguely, if he’d awakened yet and found out she was gone.

It took both hands to hold the cup steady. She drank, and set the cup down.

Jack. Thank God I didn’t stay. Ace would’ve died for sure.

She might die, anyway.

Vicki wished she were with Ace in the operating room. She’d asked to join the surgical team, but the doctor had taken a quick look at her and shaken his head. “I’m sorry,” he’d said. “No way. You’re in shock, yourself.” Then he’d instructed the nurse to show Vicki to the office and “look after her.”

Vicki supposed the doctor was right about keeping her out of the OR. In her condition, she certainly couldn’t have done Ace any good and her presence might’ve been a distraction for the others.

But she hated just sitting here, not knowing.

Ace could be dead right now.

She’d been unconscious by the time they reached the hospital.

She’ll be all right, Vicki told herself. She’ll be fine.

We’ll pop open a bottle of Champagne for her homecoming, and get royally soused, and laugh about dumb things…

Vicki lowered her face into her hands and wept.

The nurse came in, followed by two men in slacks and sports shirts. Vicki stood up and faced them. Both men had thick mustaches. The older one, gray at his temples, wore a leather rig that held an enormous handgun upside down beneath his armpit. The other, with black curly hair, had a small revolver in a holster clipped to his belt.

Vicki tried to read the nurse’s face. It looked solemn. “Have you heard anything about Ace?”

“She’s still in surgery. These men are detectives Gorman and Randisi from the police.”

Vicki wiped her eyes. She looked at the two men.

Randisi, the curly-haired one, said, “We’d like to ask you a few questions about…”

“It was Melvin Dobbs. He did it.”

“Dobbs?” Gorman asked “The Melvin Dobbs? The psycho? The guy they put away after he pulled the jumper-cable stunt on that dead cheerleader? What was it, ten-fifteen years ago?”

“That’s him,” Vicki said.

Randisi glanced at the nurse. With a nod, she turned away and left the room.

“You were there at the time of the assault?” he asked.

“No. Melvin was gone when I got there. I think he was gone. I didn’t look around. I just got Ace—Alice—out of there as fast as I could.”

“What makes you think it was this Dobbs psycho?” Gorman asked.

“It couldn’t have been anyone else. He went to the house…because of me. I don’t know why, maybe just to see me and talk, and maybe Ace tried to keep him out. See, he thought I was there. He was with me earlier, and I told him I was going home. Maybe he wanted to kill me or…abduct me or something. I don’t know.”

“Had you quarreled with him?” Randisi asked.

“I’d taken him out to dinner. I…baited him. I got him to admit he killed Dexter Pollock.”

The two policemen glanced at each other.

“I know,” Vicki said. “Everyone thinks the nurse did it. Patricia Gordon. But Melvin got her to do it.”

“How did he manage that?”

Vicki almost told about the hypnosis. And how she suspected he’d also used hypnosis to persuade Charlie Gaines to make her a partner, then staged Charlie’s crash. But she stopped herself. It would sound too much like hocus-pocus. These men might not buy it. Her credibility might start falling apart. “I don’t know how he did it,” she answered. “He wouldn’t tell me. But he did confess to making her kill Pollock. That was just before I left him. He must’ve got nervous, afraid I’d report him, so he went over to the house, thinking I’d be there.”

“Where were you?” Randisi asked.

“With a friend. Jack Randolph. At his house.”

“So,” Randisi said, “you went to dinner with Dobbs, got him to confess killing Pollock, then you told him goodnight and went straight over to this Randolph fellow’s place. Why Randolph? Why didn’t you take your information to the police?”

“That’s a good one,” she muttered.

“In what way?”

“I’d already told the Ellsworth police my suspicions about Dobbs killing Pollock. They acted like I was some kind of a flake.” She looked Randisi in the eyes. “Which I’m not.”

“You don’t seem much like a flake to me,” Gorman said.